<Welcome to ,Cove Street
Love ...':.trecl Lalll/ITost is dedicated with love to Avatar
Meber Baba. Its primarypurpose is to contribute to a sense
ofcommunity among all His lovers by providing a place for
shm'ing His remembrance.

Credits:
For Information about Avatar Meher Baba Center of Southern
California please visit our website , www.Meherubode.org. We fearure a
calendar of our events and welcome you to our home at Meherabode.
TIle Mcher Baba Bookstore provides the largest collection of books
b)' and about Meher Baba and His Teachings. Please visit us at hnp.;lL
www.MeherBabaBooks.com and navigate your way around our archived
materials, featured books and music; you can also select your favorite
image ofBelovcd Meher Baba, and become a 'Meherabode Angel' to
receive hooks throughout the year for becoming a donor. We have a
Payf'al Account for your convenience .

Pune Mirror, the BBC, South Asia Tribune. Times oflndia, Associated Press
and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

v4 ~essage[from the 'Board of fDiredors
newsletter into a global presence and are
to be commended.
Due to some questions about copyright
law, editorial content, and other concerns
that needed clarification, the Board
of Directors was unable to distribute
the magazine. We are pleased that we
recently found sufficient resolution and
the magazine was finally delivered to
AMBCSC; you now have the printed
magazine in your possession.

T

he Love Street Lamp Post (LSLP) has
been devoted to sharing information
about Avatar Meher Baba's Life and
Teachings for nearly 30 years. Our
mission has been to contribute to a sense
of spiritual community, in remembrance
of Avatar l\ileher Haha.

Vie recognize that it is all of you, the
readers of the magazine, who have
been the pillars of its existence. You
have sustained the magazine through
donations, shared articles, and your
readership. The Board of Directors
of AMBCSC offers our apology to all
of you for the delay in sending you the
LSLP; thankfully, we are able to place it
in your hands now.
The Love Street Lamp Post was started
by Greg Dunn, the original editor; Greg
was ably assisted by his wife, Gay. The
magazine began as a local newsletter
for the Avatar Meher Baba Center of
Southern California in 1987. Editors
who succeeded Greg were Christina
Riley, David McNeely, and Dina Gibson.
Thanks to Dina's enthusiasm and focus,
the LSLP expanded into an international
magazine with people contributing to the
contents of the magazine from around
the world. VVe want to thank Dina and
the LSLP staff ofPris Haffenden, Cherie
Plumlee, Tom Hart, Ray Madani, and all
those who assisted in various tasks, for
their heart-felt service and dedication to
the Love Street Lamp Post over the years.
Collaborative efforts nurtured a local

For all of you who have been supporters
and donors to the LSLP, we want to thank
you! Your love offerings were the source
of publishing the LSLP, ensuring it was
distributed world-wide. Please know all
donations from last year, and additional
funds, were used to print and publish this
issue you now have and paid for needed
corrective measures and postage.
We want to take the time to clear up
some misinformation regarding your love
donations to AIvIBCSC for the LSLE
'rVe have reviewed several years records
and cannot find any donations marked
for the LSLP that were deposited into
our General Fund. VVe were diligent in
our duty to those who contributed our of
their love for Meher Baba to make sure
contributions to the LSLP were used as
directed by the donor.
Dina Gibson has launched a new
magazine, Love Street Breezes, as an
independent venture. Ifyou would like to
find out more about her publication you
may contact her at 310-837-6419 or by
email atdinagibson@mac.com. We wish
Dina and all those working on this new
project much success.

become a Meherabode "Angel".VVe have
beautiful pendants with Baha's image.
There is much being offered from our
Archives: CD's and DVD's featuring
talks of Eruch, Mani, Mehera, Bhau,
Filis Frederick, Dr. Goher, 'KT', Meheru,
Adele Wolkin and others. Intimate talks
and discussions with His close ones offer
so much insight into His Teachings
and His Love. Plus, you can join us on
Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or just
browse the largest inventory, worldwide,
of books by and about the Avatar of the
Age. vVe feature several books penned by
Meher Baba written in other languages,
including Farsi, French, and Spanish .
In His Love and Service,
The Board of Directors,
Avatar Meher Baba Center
of Southern California
www.Meherabode.org
email: info@Meherabode.com
Please connect with AlvIBCSC
Facebook.comlAMBCSC

at

for qui,'

M.hn-abode~chapd.caUtilthe Dome-s-a piau

devotionand darsban at HISChair

We look forward to sharing with you
the ongoing efforts of AMBCSC to
communicate Meher Babas Messages
of Love and Truth. When you are in the
Southern California area, please visit His
Home, Meherabode.
What's Happening at Meherabode?
We have much to share!

MEHER BAHA BOOKSTORE:
Please visit our new bookstore website,
www.MeherBabaBooks.com. Discover
how you can join the book club, or
I

2-laidee Cooke, ~rtist txtraordinaire
rninaBibson
earlier, the Pilgrim Center (which hand. What an artist's eye she has.
is now used as living quarters for
The following article was featured in
some of the residents and the gen- a Sunday supplement of an East Coast
eral registration office; health per- magazine.
When she was an art student at Kutzmitting, Bhauji still gives his talks
town University, Haidee Cooke's teachers
in the main dining hall too.)
On my last visit there when my would ask her to put up her work for the
admiration and curiosity moved other students to see. Then, she says, they
me to make enquiries as to who would tell their students, "That's exactly
was responsible for these beautiful what I don't want you all to do."
"I see now," she says," that it was good
benches, I was told the artist was
in residence and if I liked I could for me. I didn't stick to the norm. I was so
go to her atelier and watch her used to being out of whack, that I never
create these masterpieces. I had to tried to please, because I couldn't."
chuckle when I found her 'atelier'
It was during this time that a spiriwas the bicycle storage r - -l7"":-....;;;:;:;;;;;f"_ -':In!!liill:=......---~~..,
shed at the end of the bus
sheds in the parking lot!
But how fascinating it
was to see her at work!
Haidee explained the process to me and then let me
watch as she worked on
her latest commission from Ted
- decorating the benches to go in
the gardens outside the men's and
women's quarters.
To start her works of art on the

IIlIIII. mm

Haidee

Cooke's

GoIden

Wave

T

hose of us who have had the good
fortune to stay at the Meher Pilgrim
Retreat in Meherabad have no doubt spent
many a delightful hour sitting outside the
main dining hall on the patio beside the
'Welcome to My World' tile wall.
And while sitting there in friendly
conversation or quiet contemplation
you must surely have noted and admired the exquisite art work on the
stone benches. It took me two or
three visits to the MPR before I finally met up with the very talented
artist who created these benches.
Haidee had been commissioned
by Ted Judson, the architect who
designed the magnificent Meher
Pilgrim Retreat and also, many years

~

----"I....-~~

L;._

_

II:;.....

benches, or indeed any piece of
stone, cement, marble or granite,
Haidee first paints the outline of
the wonderful swirls, circles and
patterns she is creating. She does
this all freehand while she squats
beside the slab upon which she is
working. I was amazed that the
circles and swirls were so incredibly even and round, as though she
had used a compass to make them
so perfect, but it was all done free-

tual transformation caused a radical
change in Haidee's work. A fellow
student, Michael Cooke, who was
later to become her husband, introduced her to the work of Me her Baba,
an Indian spiritual leader, whose
stated purpose was not to teach, but
to awaken the love of God in his disciples' hearts. She was so strongly affected, that "it made me go through
a change. Up to that point I used to
paint realistic. But I couldn't do realistic anymore. I started doing dots. I
thought, 'I'm going crazy.'And then came
these waves of pink. I'd call them energy;
everything was energy. People would say,
'What is that you're doing, Haidee?' 'O h,'
I used to say, 'it's all energy.'''
Today, her paintings are of beings she
calls the "coconut men" in swirls and spirals, done in layered and textured gold
acrylic paint on huge pieces of shimmering white moire and brilliantly blue silk.
She prefers silk to canvas because, "It's
more delicate; it's more translucent."

5

The coconut men evolved from drawings she used to do of lush tropical landscapes; their scales mimic the patterns on
the trunks of coconut trees. Chakras, or
centers, focusing on the head, heart, throat
and other parts of the body are often highlighted in some way.
Haidee says "the coconut is a symbol of
complete surrender of body, mind, energy
and soul to the will of God, the beloved."
She works only in gold paint as a result

6

of another artistic and spiritual transformation that came years after the first.
"I remember it was a winter night, and
I was lying in my little room. It was nothing out of the ordinary, and I had this
experience. My eyes were open - I wasn't
sleeping. I'm not the type of person to see
visions. All of a sudden I felt this tremendous, beautiful love. I felt like the life in
me was gold, I felt the gold in my veins. It
was an experience. And I never told any-

body, not even Michael. I've used gold
ever since. I never
used anything else
after that."
Though her work
and her explanations
are far from mainstream, Haidee is one
of the most downto-earth people you'll
ever meet. She bubbles, she's fun, and
she loves to dance.
Haidee spent the
first few years of her
life in a small town in
the Dominican Republic, where her father was a doctor. Today she lives with her
husband, Michael, and IS-year-old son,
Orion, in a house she and Michael built
themselves, deep in the woods in Paradise
Township.
When Haidee paints, she spreads the
silk on the floor,and kneels over the painting, as if crouched in prayer.
"When I'm painting, it's this single God
focus. It 's like a happy baby.It's a beautiful
feeling; it's addictive."
To loosen up from long periods of
â&#x20AC;˘ crouching over her
paintings, she dances.
Hers is the dance of
the coconut men, a
sinuous, wavy dance,
with echoes of India
and the Middle East.
Painting and dancing, she envisions a
show that combines
the two.
"I don't like it
when you go somewhere, and you have
painting,
painting,
painting. I don't like
formal
'openings';
they're stiff. I don't
like the feeling of this
social discomfort. I
wouldn't want anyone to feel like that
with my art.
"My
paintings
have actually come
out of movement,
because the coconut man came when

I was dancing. So when I am painting, I
feel the music, and I see movement. And
also there's a message that comes with the
coconut man about the new humanity and
about us coming into our real oneness, our
brotherhood.
"When I paint, I see images of dance
pieces. I see the whole thing; I even see
the hats."
And, after years
of secluded painting,
Haidee is ready to
show her work.
"It's like my precious child. I didn't
want to show it before
its time."
Haidee signs her
pieces, "An Olea Anarna," a name that came
to her at a workshop
on finding your angelic name. "Somehow I
can't relate to my own,
Haidee, but I didn't
like this one either. Yet
it was the only thing
that just kept coming
up, coming up, and I

didn't question it.
Then I got to like
it."
It was years after she got the
name that she began to see a meaning in it, and she
now sees Olea as
a feminine version
of the Spanish
word for wave,ola,
and Anama, she
relates to a Sanskrit word meaning the nameless
substance of God.
Lately Haidee
has been thinking about meaning, and she has
been going on retreats to the Meher Baba Spiritual
Center in Myrtle
Beach,
South
Carolina. "I go
there, because that
place has magic,
and I need it now.
It's this magic that
nurtures me. Youjust cannot believe that there's
any place on Earth like
that. It's so peaceful, and ....._ _ ..
human.' Spirituality means being perfectly
then the vegetation has a
human. It's all about daring to have that
magical quality.
"What is spirituality? Baba says, 'Spiri- human experience."
As she paints, dances and goes on retuality is that which makes a man more

7

treat, Haidee thinks a lot about the meaning of her work.
Explaining the paintings, she writes,
"The golden wave brings about a transformation so complete, it births a new creation, a new humanity. As we speak, this
luminous wave is creating new spirals of
happiness, harmony and creativity, so that
the universe can vibrate in spiritual unity,
and wisdom comes to reign. In the new

8

"It's not a matter of reading about
humanity, brotherhood will be a practical
reality - humanity will be one family. The it or having faith. This is my misnew humanity is what is being awakened sion. I was born for it, and our children will live it. You can feel it coming."
in us, what we are becoming."
And these are not abstract ideas to
Editor's note: And now Haidee lives in
Haidee Cooke.
Meherabad and does
her magical creations
for the pleasure of
His lovers. She has
also been commissioned to do pieces
for other residents in
Meherabad.

CWhat's 2iappening at ~eherabad

The familyfrom the Pumpkin Housefor Children. led by their 'Mummy' Stella Manuel.
treats the p ilgrims and Mandali to a wonderful Christmas show in the Meberabad Theatre.

Symbolism In c..JJ1eher r.Baba Love
(j)ynasties,

~urqas,

~y

r:Pralaya ::Reservation

i.Jl1alladi :Rama:Roo

A reader sent us this article that appeared in window on the right and a roof above.Me- along with them returned home three days
her Baba used to spend long hours inside later. How I reached the place and how I
the South Asian Tribune

N

ew Delhi: Today is February 7, 2010.
It was on this day in 1969 the
physical body of Meher Baba was interned
in the tomb atop Meherabad hill. That
day also marked the birthday of the Avatar according to the Parsi calendar. What a
symbolism it was? Births and deaths are an
illusory phenomenon. And for the Avatar
there is no birth; there is no death; he remains eternal.
The tomb shrine came to be in the
twenties. For the Meherabad residents of
the day, as Bhau Kalchuri points out in his
magnum opus, Lord Meber, it was just a pit
room - a room with a pit in the centre, a

the pit. Over the next couple of decades,
the pit room's significance became a matter
of public knowledge. And there were occasions when Baba 'conducted' his lovers to
the tomb and even asked a lucky one or two
to stay inside the pit.
My mother and my two kid brothers
were at Meherabad along with our younger
sister as Babas body, that had been lying in
the pit, disappeared from public view. How
lucky they were!They were able to have the
last mass darshan. I still, even at this distance of time, find it difficult to resist the
temptation to feel envy of them. You see, I
reached the Hill by Feb 2 night along with
a group of Baba lovers from Guntur and

survived the biting cold in the night with
no warm clothes, and with no thick blanket, is a story for some other day.This journey marked my life'sjourney, awayfrom the
protective care of my parents.
It may be amusing to read what I am
going to say. Father never allowed me to
venture out of our village to Guntur, the
district headquarters town (distance some
30 km). Not even to see a district level science exhibition, lest this 19 year old could
get lost in the mad, mad world. Yet, here I
was boarding a bus for Meherabad, some
700 km away, all alone. Those days there
were no cellular phones. Telephones were
also not ubiquitous. You simply booked a

9

their chairs. Some of them
"'~;"1.11 climb the stage and meet
~~;;.j Bhauji. Again the Master
of Ceremonies announces
'Bhauji wants all the members of the Kalchuri dynasty
to come on the stage'. Some

r
call and waited for the phone connection to
materialise. For this luxury, one had to visit
the telegraph office. So, I did the next best
thing: sent a cable to father suggesting that
he and mother should rush to Meherabad.
In a way, the journey marked the begin ning of my love with newspapers. I was not
new to newspapers. Whatever be the pressures on his purse, father always ensured
that I would get my three-four newspapers
and a couple of magazines. Andhra Pradesh
did not have a proper delivery system in the
fifties and sixties. My 'quota' came by post.
Probably, father could not have visualised
that newspapers would become my addiction and a source of living. Not even 1.
Welcome Ram Singh Kalchuri
All these events of the past came flooding back as Bhau Kalchuri, Chairman, Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, (AMBPPCT), called me to the
Amartithi stage on Jan 31. I was sitting in
the third row of the audience . As he came
to the stage, he spotted me. And as is his
wont, he made a symbolic twisting of his
non-existent mustache, 'muche', I responded in the only way he expects me - twisting
my long luxurious 'muche',
There are Baba lovers, and Baba lovers
who sport muche. But it is my good fortune
that I could catch Bhau 's attention three
years ago during an internet chat session at
the Trust Office . To our surprise and to our
acute discomfiture, Bhauji showcased me
IO

and Vani on the Internet. And introduced
us as members of the extended Kalchuri
Dynasty. Soon I became his Ram Singh
Kalchuri 'You are coming to Amartithi', he
said during one of my visits to the Trust office in June. It was not a command. It was a
simple expression of an expectation. 'Sit in
the front row. I will introduce you to every
body'.
Bhauji pulls your leg, takes a dig at you
and even upbraids you, all laced with humour. But there is an undercurrent of seriousness in whatever he says.
One can catch the seriousness if one is
alert. Otherwise one is prone to take his remarks as a joke. And commit the mistake
of ignoring the remark. Even forgetting it.
Like for instance, his repeated references
to what Baba had said in the fifties about
one fourth and three-fourths worlds being
destroyed. About it a little while later.
So I was there amongst the audience in
the enclosure close to the Amartithi stage.
I was feeling a bit sleepy though. Vani and
Sheela were also in the audience, seated
cross legged outside the enclosure. While
fighting to keep sleep at bay, I noticed commotion in the front row. Bhauji's relatives
came from his native place near Nagpur.
Some of them are elderly, some in the middle age bracket.
Soon came a word from the stage: Bhau
wants the Kalchuri dynasty to come on
stage. The family members get up from

lli~~ more members go up the
stairs.
Dynasty on Stage: Mystery
Deepened
From my chair I could see
Bhauji was receiving every
one of the Kalchuri dynasty,
for some a shake hand, for
some a hug, for a few a pat
on the shoulder or a kiss on
the cheeks. All this must be a
great strain on his body. Remember Bhauji has had 21
operations. He cannot stand
comfortably. And he needs
constant 'medication'. I began
to wonder about what a stam. -1.
ina Baba has given Bhauji.
Disturbing my reverie
came one more announcement, not once,
but twice in quick succession- a call to the
Kalchuri dynasty to come on stage. There
was an element of restlessness in the air.
And the way Bhauji was looking made me
feel he wanted me to join the family on
stage. Does he really want me on the stage?
Just because he 'elevated' me to the dynasty,
should I go on the stage when it is a purely
Kalchuri family gathering? Will it be fair
for me to go on the stage? What will others
think of me? Will they dub me a mad cap?
I was confused. I didn't know what to
do, frankly. In helplessness, I looked unto
Bhauji, silently asked: 'Shall I also come'.
He understood my dilemma and signaled
"Don't worry. Don't come". It is Bhauji's
greatness that he referred to my dilemma
when he took the mike a short while later.
Conveying that he has pardoned my 'indecision', he told the huge gathering ofBaba
lovers, 'I wanted him to come. But he felt
that he could not as he is an ordinary person, not a member of the dynasty. I understand .. .'
His words had a soothing effect on me.
By then, all dynasty members returned to
their chairs. And stood up twice in their
chairs on the left side of the enclosure. One
of them, who is a regular at the Hostel D,
signaled that I should twist my 'm uche', I
obliged him as I stood up in my seat on
the right side of the enclosure. What about
him? You see, this member of the Kalchuri

dynasty may have the royal blood in his
veins but he has no 'muche'I
Next Day, Feb 1, Vani and I met Bhauji
as he arrived at the Amartithi stage. He did
not look at me. Nor did he accept my greetings. He only spoke to Vani. ''Yesterday, I
called him (that is me) ... I wanted to introduce him to every one. He did not come",
Bhauji told her. She replied : 'You know,
Bhauji, Rao is always like this. A bit hesitant to do any thing. I remonstrated with
him. Today you call him. He will come (to
the stage)'. I was amused at the conversation - Bhauji complaining; Vani explaining.
What a scene it was to watch. More about
it some other day.
I did not expect a call from the stage. But
it came when Bhauji was addressing, rather
midway through his address. This time I
went up; stood like a disciplined soldier;
answered the two or three questions put
to me. I wanted to return to my seat. But
stopped in my stride as Bhau said "Where
are you going? Remain here". A while later,
Dhake, the master of Amartithi ceremonies, made me sit by his side. More or less
the same sequence of events followed at the
Volunteers meeting held later at the Hostel

-D.
One Comment-One Advice
For those wondering about the Kalchuri
dynasty mystery, I offer only one comment.
And one piece of advice.
My comment: Bhauji is not one who
speaks flippantly. My advice: Go to the Internet. View the web cast of the function.
Listen to each word with attention. Play
the web cast for a second time. The winter
frost will melt away. For those of you who
don't have the luxury of accessing the Web
cast, well, here is my note to put issues in
perspective.
To be on the safe side, I placed before
Bhauji my interpretation and asked him
whether I was right or off the track. I
sought an early reply because of the deadline to this column. Like always Bhauji was
generous. "I can understand why you want
early reply. Just see, though I am busy, still
very busy, I am giving you reply", he wrote
in his e-mail response in less than 24-hours.
And added: "I permit you to write about
my Amartithi speech in your new colum.
Whatever you understand, it is 100% right.
You understood perfectly well".
Now what is my interpretation? If you
notice - rather listen, Bhauji draws your
attention to the fact that Kalchuris were
great rulers in Rajasthan, Western India.
Artifacts oftheir period are on display at an

archaeological museum in Jabalpur, which
incidentally is an important Baba centre
in today's Madhya Pradesh. This historical fact cannot be wished away.The advent
of British colonial rule saw the decline of
the Kalchuri rule. Over time, they lost their
kingdom and were left with barren land
and some forest tracts. Most families of
the dynasty migrated to Central India, and
finally settled near Nagpur, where Bhauji
was born.
Dynasty Demystified
According to Bhauji, initially the dynasty members tried their hand at business. 'Honesty is not a virtue for business.
So they failed'. It was then they thought of
education as a means for livelihood. Bhauji
was among the early beneficiaries of the
decision. What is so great in this story?
There are many more such families big
and small in India, you may ask. The key
to your question is in Bhauji's Amartithi
speech and the questions he asked me on
stage. Play the web cast. You will know for
sure. What did Bhauji ask ofme? He asked:
"Where are the members ofthe dynasty today. What are they doing? What are you
doing for a living?"
For me, these questions sounded very innocuous as I heard Bhau. So I replied in a
matter offact manner:"Oh! Dynasty members have come to Baba, and are working
for Baba (You see, my reference is to Bhauji
himself. I thought it was indeed a clever
reply). For my living I work on computers and Internet. (This is true. He knows).
Hearing this, Bhauji remarked: "See, he is
from Kalchuri dynasty. But today what he
is? He is making a living on computers".
Some one from the audience (at the volunteers meeting) asked: "What were the
volunteers like during the first Sahavas?"To
me the question appeared as an attempt to
divert Bhauji's attention. He, however, ignored the questioner and went on to speak
about the Kalchuri dynasty.
Analogy, a Metaphor
What did he say? He said (in Hindi):
"Change is the norm of life. Everything
keeps changing. (Pointing towards me) He
is from the Kalchuri dynasty but now he has
become an editor. Others (of the Kalchuri
dynasty) are doing different things. No dynasty. God alone is there. He is permanent.
All others change. Change is in illusion. So
remember Him, Baba, the Avatar. He has
come to us in human form."
By now the reader must have appreciated
the symbolism in Bhau's speech, to which I
made a reference at the very outset. Let me

elaborate. His audience is mostly made up
of people from rural Maharashtra and rural
Uttar Pradesh, who saw royals and feudalism first hand and have experienced the
change that has come about in democratic
India. The Iranians who have come in large
numbers also are in a position to know the
truism Bhauji was referring to.
What about the large group ofBaba lovers from Andhra Pradesh? Well, they have
some difficulty to appreciate the metaphor
Bhauji is using . Firstly coastal districts and
Rayalaseema regions-from where bulk of
Telugu speaking Baba lovers come-enjoyed the fruits of British rule . It means
better communications, better education
and simply better living when compared
to say a place like Hamirpur belt. Secondly
because for most people from coastal and
Andhra and Rayalaseema, feudalism and
royals are text book stories, and celluloid
scenes. A look at the women section of the
volunteers' meeting made this very clear.
Bhau spotted a couple of women who
had pulled the 'pallu' of their saree over
their heads virtually making their face invisible. Ghunghat, as it is called, is a custom
observed in Hamirpur and also across UP,
Bihar, Rajasthan and parts of Maharashtra
even today. It is a custom. So they are doing
it. Such customs are not practiced in coastal Andhra for instance. Baba during his
Hamirpur visits sowed the seeds of change
in custom. He even had a special sahavas
when women were allowed to sit on chairs
and eat food on tables. The fruits of Baba's seed we are seeing today with women
largely adapting to the changing times.
In short, what is Bhauji us telling with
the analogy of the Kalchuri dynasty? He
is saying: Dynasties come and go. Kingdoms come and go. In fact, the dynasties
and kingdoms and kings and queens have
gone with the winds of change . Kings are
replaced by Ministers and officers. Don't
run after them. They too are not permanent. They too don't last long. The only one
permanent is God- the Paratpara Parabrhamma. He is always there. He has come
to you as Avatar Meher Baba. Follow Him.
Love Him as He should be loved. He will
give you the universal push, for you and
many like you who love God.
No TV Evangelism
I, for one, believe Bhauji has been driving
this message for a while, if memory serves
me, for over three years. He is not a Television evangelist. There is no need for him to
be one either. As the 'night watchman' of
Baba and as the biographer ofBaba, Bhauji
II

knows first hand what he says
is true. He is a good story teller
cut in the mould of a grand father who keeps telling stories
to the grandchild.
Grand fathers always make
rambling narratives, because
they are not TV anchors. For
them, what matters is the
content and not the style. For
them, the audiences are not intellectual giants, but tender tiny
tots in their formative age who
are ever willing to listen and
learn. For this audience, there
is no need to tell the moral of a
story bluntly like in a detergent
advertisement. These audiences are receptive to the same
story told again and again and
are quick to capture the nuances. They are not argumentative
but are intelligent. Fathers,
who have graduated to grandfather-hood, know this truism.
Now about the one/fourth
and three/fourth, Bhauji keeps referring to
these days. And in fact spoke about at the
Amartithi 2010 and Volunteers Meeting
2010.
Let me point out that this is not a new
theme that has been popping up in Bhauji's
speeches. It made its appearance for the
first time in the emails that came from
Bhauji in what I call the 'Yadrakh' series
of emails.Yes, it is, however, only these
past few months that Bhauji is making
pointed reference to the one-fourth and
three-fourth worlds both in his public addresses and internet chats. And every time
he makes this reference, he concludes with
the observation: 'Baba lovers have no reason to worry'.
When I heard Bhauji at the volunteers'
meeting and later while discussing the subject with noted Baba lovers Balakrishna
Meher, a Hyderabad based air force officer,
and Sanyasiraju, Vizianagarm based singer
and composer, I began to wonder what
could be the latent message. Is Bhauji referring to Pralaya? And as Balakrishna remarks, is Bhauji giving a subtle hint?
No Worries, Seat Reserved
"Seats of Baba lovers are reserved in
the ship. They must keep looking straight
when seated in the ship", says Bhauji while
drawing your attention to a circular from
Baba disseminated in the '50s. When it was
issued, the circular caused a major commotion amongst Baba lovers. But over the
I2

years, the circular and its contents were forgotten.
Till Bhauji resurrected them in his own
understated way. As Vani says, while talking of Baba and of what Bhauji says, we
should not think through out head but
speak through the heart. So, I placed my
doubts before Bhauji. He replied thus:
"Yes, you can interpret as Pralaya. This
is Pralaya - partial, not Mahapralaya.
Mahapralaya means the whole Creation
is submerged in the Divine Ocean for
a long time, and God in the form of the
Avatar takes rest. When the force of illusion increases and increases, at that time
Mahapralaya takes place. This one quarter
and three quarters will be partial-pralaya-not Mahapralaya. As this is pralaya,
not Mahapralaya, the one quarter will be
saved, and they will tum towards the Truth.
They will not see this side or that side, but
straight towards God, who is carrying the
ship, in the form of Meher Baba. Not only
Baba lovers, but God-loving people, they
are all Baba lovers. The ship is the simile
which indicates the reason why they will
not look this side or that side, but straight
towards God in form of Baba. It is a long
thing to make this point very, very clear,
but this is sufficient. I was really cautioning
Baba lovers that they should focus towards
Baba, because He is in form as the Avatar.
You are right, and you did the right thing,
and that's why you have good mustache

and you look like you are from Kalchuri
dynasty".
I rest my case.
http://southasiantribune.comlsymbolism-inmeber-baba-loue/
.

uslims in Indian-administered
Kashmir are not happy with an influx of tourists and conspiracy theorists
to a shrine in Srinagar that is claimed by
some to hold the remains ofJesus Christ.
While an American author wants DNA
tests carried out, the tomb's caretaker says
he won't let "crazy" researchers "desecrate"
a tomb that Muslims insist houses a Sufi
saint.
- Hamon Mirani (May 21, '10)

une February isÂť. Indian investigators examined security camera footage Monday as they tried to identify who
planted a deadly bomb in a bakery popular
with foreigners. [and many Baba lovers.]
No one has claimed responsibility for
the attack Saturday night that killed nine
people in the city of Pune, 125 miles (200
kilometers) southeast of Mumbai. Suspicions, however, quickly fell on Islamic
militant groups blamed for past attacks,
including the 2008 massacre of166 people
in Mumbai, the country's financial hub.
"As of now I will not be able to confirm or rule out any group," Pune Police
Commissioner Satyapal Singh said, adding that he had formed four teams to
probe different aspects of the attack. "We
are investigating from all angles ." Officials
said one or two people posing as customers left a backpack containing a bomb in
the German Bakery. In addition to the
nine deaths, 60 people were wounded.
While the restaurant did not have security cameras, police were examining video
shot by cameras installed at a hotel across
the street, police said. On Monday, police
showed the footage to bakery workers
who had spotted the abandoned backpack
before it exploded, a police officer said,
speaking on condition of because he was
not authorized to talk to reporters about

an ongoing investigation.
The bombing was India's first major terrorist attack since the Mumbai siege and
came just a day after India and Pakistan
scheduled their first formal dialogue since
New Delhi suspended wide-ranging peace
talks in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack. Security forces have been put on high
alert at airports, train stations and markets
across India, and Hindu nationalists have
blamed Pakistan and demanded the talks
be canceled.

Editor's note: On a note topilgrims traveling
to our Beloved's Samadbi, just be extra
alert not only while traveling, but also in
Meberabad. The detectives visited the Meber
Pilgrim Retreat and told the residents and
other workers at the MPR, be on the look
out for knapsacks or cases left standing by
themselves.
I guess we should just keep in mind the
words with which Baba had consoled one
of His lovers many years ago "No amount
of medical intervention or lack thereof will
change your appointed time ofcoming to me".
And what better place to go to Him than
when you are right there? All we can do is
to hold Him in our hearts and minds - constantly.

The German Bakery aswe knew it.

2iow J CWill ~iss

the Bennan fBakery!
Sky CWisemall, JWe1lerabad

'l J{ ]hen I'm in Pune I always spend a few

VV hours each morning in the German
Bakery.I walk down from the Surya Villa at
about 6 a.m. and stay 'til about 9 a.m. Then
I go back to the Surya Villa and have a bowl
of fruit and more coffee. This area of Pune
is forever changed now; Wow, I will miss it
so much. I hope they rebuild the German
Bakery. In many ways it was a strange place
with a bizarre vibe. But for some reason after months in Meherabad I always found it
a place where Baba seemed to help me synthesize all the lessons He had been giving me
in His Meherabad Fire. The day before the
bombing I was there in Pune and at the German Bakery as usual.
Many Baba lovers had been in the German Bakery or had close brushes with the
place on the day ofthe bombing. I myselfhad
gone to Pune with the idea of staying a few
days, but I forgot my computer power cord
and my mouse and all my nice shirts back
in Meherabad. And besides that, the Dhuni
was that night. So I decided Baba wanted
me to go back home to Meherabad more
or less against my own wishes. The German
Bakery is a place that has captured my heart.
This is a sad time for all who love the place
and its denizens. I worry about the Tibetan
waiters who are always so nice to me. I can
picture the faces ofa lot of regulars I've come
to recognize. I hope to see them again. It is a
unique place and it is hard to believe that the
rustic wood slab table where I like to sit is not
there anymore.
And what repercussions this event is
having here in Meherabad where now our
entrance to the Meher Pilgrim Retreat is
much more tightly controlled, packages are
now not allowed in the dining hall, and for
the first time ever the other night bags had
to be checked in lockers at His Samadhi.
And there were armed guards patrolling the
periphery of His Silence on the night after
the bombing. But they were not in evidence
last night. I feel happy that they were not.
The question seems to be how tightly to tie
one's camel. But I realize that there are no
simple answers to this question for those in
charge ofour safety,who must make difficult,
practical, worldly decisions everyday as they
try their best always to please the Beloved,
and care for His Samadhi and the pilgrims
and the surrounding environs in this Sacred
Land where He has trod.
I3

"7here is 2-Jo ~ay of Savino One's Eoo Except by 'cove. (Boethe)
II

BanJ 2<leiner, Jl1elterabad

P

art 1. "Who Are You? Who, Who?
[Lyrics by Pete Townshend]
Oh Baba, you're so fine, You're so fine,
YOU THINK that you can blow my
mind, Hey Baba! Hey Baba!"
On February 13,2010 at approximately
7:00 p.m. Mehera, Pia and I were driving to register in our hotel in the Koregaon Park area of Pune. On February 13,
2010 at approximately 7:15 p.m. a bomb
exploded at the German Bakery in the
Koregaon Park area of Pune.
A big reason that we make these trips
out of Meherabad to Pune is to give
Pia a little getaway. Being a daughter
of Meherabad is somewhat akin to
continuously having access to the chicken
soup for the soul, but sometimes fiveyear-old girls just wanna have fun.
But let's get back to our car in Pune.
Mehera was getting a bit irritated with
me because I was insisting that all of us
should first drive to our hotel to register
and drop off our bags before going out.
Mehera was of the opinion that it would
be a better use of time if only I went off
with the car to deal with the hotel and
that she and Pia could go by rickshaw and
get a head start on the fun stuff. Mehera's
plan was that she and Pia would go to the
German Bakery for a snack and to the
Bund Garden fairground where in the
evenings they have horsie rides, slides and
merry-go-rounds. In her plan, I would
meet up with them later, after finishing
the hotel stuff. But, Mehera saw that I
was insistent on us staying together, and
not wanting to turn an irritation into a
quarrel, Mehera agreed to have everybody
go to the hotel first.
At the hotel we were in the process of
xeroxing our passports and completing all
the formalities that foreigners must comply with, when a call came in telling us
that a bomb just exploded at the German
Bakery. 17 people died from the blast and
over 50 people were seriously injured.
Now a guy like me can have a panic attack if I lose my keys. But the shock that
recoiled from the fact that terrorism almost put its hand on my family and me,
made me completely numb. The only way
that I would describe that state, is that the
mind and feelings are shut off. Also, in
that state there is an observer who watch-

I4

es everything that is going on, including
the actions performed by me, but the observer is not identifying with any actions
or with any sense of "I, me or mine". In
short, there was a moment there where
the usual "me" that I identify with was no
longer in the driver's seat.
But, as we all have sadly come to know,
all things must pass. We cannot hold a
moment, the moment holds us. It seems
like everything except "Existence Infinite
and Eternal" (GOD) is destined to either
chase after the thrill ofvictory or to try to
run away from the agony of defeat.
But as is my habit, I digress. After I
started becoming un-numbed, waves of
gratefulness started coming over me along
with feelings of sadness and guilt about
the people who did not make it. Survivor
guilt is a package that I was born with.
My father survived the Holocaust and my
mother survived the siege of Stalingrad.
They were both torn between whether to
celebrate the fact that they were saved or
whether to mourn the loss of loved ones
and community members who lost their
lives through seemingly senseless world
events.
A brush or a close call with a potential
tragedy seems to have a way of giving us
a temporary "awakening" or at least a reminder as to how temporal this life really
is. Mehera and I both felt a need to call
people close to us and share the news of
the event and communicate to people that
we love them and that we are honored to
share a slice of life with them. Of course

be termed as "being saved". I definitely
could identify in myself the need to have
or to construct a belief system in which
there is a "Savior" who has the power to
change events in the Universe in order to
rescue me and my loved ones from harm
and danger. And I kept asking myself if
there is a Savior, why in the world would
he want to save me?
In no uncertain terms Baba told us,
that, "To each one I appear to be what he
thinks that I am." Therefore, whether we
choose to think that Baba is our "Savior"
or whether we choose to think that Baba
is "Not a Savior", we would be right.
Part 2. Who Am I?
"Oh Baba, you're so fine, You're so fine,
I think that YOU actually CAN blow my
mind, Hey Baba! Hey Baba!"
Cosmology: In metaphysics, it is the
study of being and knowing. Because inquiring minds are asking if there is anybody out there who can actually save us.
And if the answer is yes, than does that
"power" ever exercise its power to save a
wretch like me?
"Who am I?" (This original whim can
also be called the first "WORD uttered
by God: "WHO AM I?" -God Speaks)
"W ho am I?" is the most original question. And, "I am God" is the only right
answer. But right now, in this moment, is
it the Eternal Soul, (the essence of our being), or is it our ego-mind (the sanskaric
casing) that is doing the asking? Who is
it that is living this moment within us, for
us or through us?

it also feels good if some- ~~~ir--:;;;ii;::=t:5riJ=~~~~~E
one tells you that they love ~
you too and that you have iiiiifi&~iii
an important place in their
hearts.
Since almost all of our
friends are Baba lovers, the
major theme that almost
everybody wanted to convey to us, was how Baba
had "saved us". Of course,
in that moment, we agreed
with everybody and profusely kept on repeating,
"Thank you, Baba."But privately I started asking myself whether what happened
The aftermath
actually empirically can

The Soul is Existence Infinite and Eternal. The Soul is beyond space and time.
While contained in the prison of Time
and Space the Soul is only a witness. It
witnesses what is happening in the gross,
subtle and mental worlds and what is being done in those worlds by gross, subtle
and mental bodies. The Soul does not
participate in the illusion of life. And
the purpose of the creation, as we have
been told, is for creation to be a factory
to create the consciousness necessary for
the Soul to come to know that ''All souls
(atmas) were, are and will be in the OverSoul (Paramatma)." (First sentence of
God Speaks)
When consciousness is complete, as it is
in the human form, the stage is set for the
Soul to answer that most original question. But unfortunately, in the process of
manufacturing consciousness for the unconscious Soul, a by-product of sanskaras
is also created .
When fully developed, this sanskaric
by-product (false self) not only has the
capability to create a separate "ego-mind"
entity but also has the capacity to compel consciousness to identify with itself,
(the ego-mind) and not with the Soul.
So, the ego-mind which served the purpose of being a sort of"witness protection
program" for the Soul and a holding pen
for the growing consciousness during the
evolution process, now in human form is
unwilling to retire and get out of the way
in order to allow the Soul to use the fully
developed consciousness to experience itself as Existence Infinite and Eternal.
Therefore, one can take a point of view
that this newly minted and most precious
commodity called consciousness which
was only created for the Soul to have the
ability to know itself was essentially carjacked by the ego-mind. And the irony
is that this ego-mind was a vehicle specifically created to deliver the Soul to the
Promised Land. So, this ego-mind, which
pledged to serve and protect the Soul,
possibly decided that it could have more
fun by going rogue. But fans of the Soul
can rest assured that in the Big Plan no
Soul is ever left behind. But even though
we know that the ending will eventually
turn out good, nonetheless, like all probing minds, we want to know how the Illusionist is going to save the Soul?
There is a Magician's Code, that states
that, "I promise never to reveal the secret
of any illusion to a non-magician." The
word "magic" is itself derived from the

Gary,Pia. and Mebera

word "Magi", which not only has ties to
the "Jesus Saves" story but also can refer
to anyone who is a follower of Zoroaster.
Well, the big deal or the fresh Quaker
Oats of this Avataric Advent is that our
Zoroastrian illusionist, Meher Baba, told
us how He came to play the Lover and
Beloved game with the ego-mind. And
He revealed to us that how, in the moment of blissful union, the ego-mind releases the Soul that it has kept as a captive
audience in its prison of sanskaric false
identification. And then in a moment
that is both in and out ofTime and Space,
POOF,just like that, the Soul disappears,
not just from the stage or body but from
all of creation, forever.
"Once the soul is freed of illusion, Illusion does not merely cease to exist, but is
then found never to have existed at all."
(God Speaks)
The Illusion is the illusion that the Illusionist creates.
But before we blame the ego-mind for
the game that it plays, we must accept the
design of this game as something that was
part of the original divine plan (or whim).
It's as though Baba, the Divine Conscious
aspect of God, and also that aspect which
is connected with the divine imagination
of God (creation), wants to not only play
the role of the shepherd for each Soul
that goes through life, but also wants to
play the role of helper (or Savior) in each
Soul's jailbreak.
Eruch would tell us that Baba used to

say that, "The body is just the excreta of
the Soul." And Eruch also used to say
that, "The only thing that is standing in
the way of God realizing Himself in you,
is you. It is only after you get out of the
way that God can experience Himself to
be who He always is."
Eruch also used to wear a t-shirt that
said, "God, save me from your lovers."
But the bottom line question is: If there
is a possibility of being saved, do we need
saving from events or others, or from ourselves?
Part 3: "I tell you all, with my Divine
Authority, that you and I are not "WE,"
but "ONE.""[Meher Baba's Call]
"Oh Baba, you're so fine, You're so fine,
GO AHEAD and blow my mind, Hey
Baba! Hey Baba!"
The Ego-mind sent a message to the
Master asking for an appointment to
have a talk. The Master agreed to have a
meeting. The transcript of that meeting is
reproduced here.
MB: denotes Master-Blaster. ME: denotes Mind-ego
MB : Welcome. You wanted to meet
with me. What's on your mind?
ME: Well, this is not an easy thing to
say, but I sort of thought that we had a
deal.
MB :What is the nature of the deal that
you thought that we had?
ME: Originally, it seemed like you
needed to connect with someone who was
really able to love you, and we needed to

IS

to lose everything. But I
have an unfair advantage
in this contest.
ME: And what may
that be?
MB: I created you. And
when I created you it was
solely for the purpose of
transporting my soul. The
deal that we made was
that upon completion of
the soul's journey your
services would be permanently terminated. But
what gives me the advan':..
~-..
Policeinspecting the GermanBaker)'bombingin Pune.
tage that I spoke of, is that
I can pull the soul out of
connect to someone who was really able your body at any time. The problem for
to save us. Since neither of us was really you is that your body cannot live without
able to do that for the other, we made a a soul, since the soul is what gives life to
compromise in which we agreed to pre- your life. On the other hand, the soul does
tend to love you and you agreed to pre- not depend on any body since it is Existend to save us.
tence Infinite and Eternal.
For eternity we have maintained that
ME: Okay, so you can pull the plug on
status quo and it seemed that everything me at anytime. Then where is this equal
was working pretty well. But now, in your battle that you are bragging about? So, baMaster-Blaster Advent, you are really sically you're telling me that you used me
shaking things up. I read your books and as a vehicle and than decided to pay no
it seems like you are saying that you want mind to me. I don't know where you come
to blow my mind.
from, but where I come from we don't like
And you very well know that if you to be used.
MB: I hear your pain. I will tell you
blow my mind that will kill me. Not kill
me in those 'pretend to kill me' ways in about the equal battle in a minute. I Am
which I have already died more than 8 Existence Infinite and Eternal. That is
million times. You very well know that if where I come from. In my non-dual state
you unplug my mind, that will really kill there is no question of using anybody
me. Not like a change of uniforms when since I am all that ever was, ever is and
I leave one physical body for another. ever will be. One needs something other
You're talking about kissing me goodbye! than one's self if one was going to use
Nobody is going to sign up for this deal them . And since you brought up where
after they read the fine print. You want to you come from, please allow me tell you
take my very existence and I get nothing?! where you come from, if you don't mind.
Is that your deal?
ME: Why should I mind? You are Truth
MB: I appreciate how you were able to personified. Whatever you tell me might
sum up the past, the present and the fu- hurt me, but nonetheless it will be true. I
ture of our relationship in a very succinct know that in the past I used to prefer the
manner. I agree that the "love-save"trade- out of sight out of mind approach towards
off that we originally tried out, never re- truth, but I think that I have graduated to
ally worked as well as we both hoped that a place where I would rather hate myself
it would. But it was always only a tem- for who I really am, than to love myself
porary truce. So, it is time now for both for who I am really not.
MB: That is the essence of right thinkof us to up the ante and start to play for
keeps. We both have something that we ing. And that is what makes you ready
will fight to the death to protect. You will to hear the truth about yourselÂŁ You are
wage the ultimate fight for your beloved a projection of my infinite imagination.
mind and likewise I will stake everything I needed you because I needed someone
in the fight for my beloved soul.
other than myself to help deliver the Soul
It is an equal battle, since for you to lose to the promised land of infinite conyour mind would mean losing everything sciousness. Although you come out of me,
and for me to lose my soul would also be my imagination that is, you do not come

...........

I6

out of my reality. You were born to deliver the drop back to the ocean. You are
almost there . The fact that I am talking
to you is a sign of how close you are to
the goal.
I know that it is deflating to think of
oneself as a figment of some one else's
imagination. You may think that I am
callous and indifferent towards you, but
I have watched every step of the journey
that you and my soul have gone on. And
I must tell you that in the process I have
fallen in love with you. Really, I have.
Now I promise you that I will love you in
a way that in all the eternity of time you
have never been loved before. I promise
to love you in a way that will melt you
heart and satisfy your mind.
In the absolute beginning when you
asked me for life, I told you that "living is dying by loving". Now I promise
to engulf you with the kind of love, that
to your mind, is beyond imagination
and conception. Throughout your life,
through the ages and the yugas, you have
been searching for something that is
truly worth dying for. In finding me, you
have found that which is worth living for
and that which is worth dying for. You
used to think that I was going to be the
one who was always going to save you.
But actually you are the one who was always saving me. You are "the illusion that
sustains reality". Nonetheless, if anyone
thinks that I ever saved you in the past,
it was only because both of us were only
waiting for this moment to arrive. Now
is the time for our embrace. Come to me,
willingly and without fear. I will blow
your mind via the completeness of my
love. I love you.
ME: I love you too. I am all yours.
And I now see that you have always been
mine. Embrace me my Beloved. There is
no more longing for saving.There is only
the longing for your love. I see now that
you were always saving me just for this
moment, which puts an end to all moments. Be gentle with me.

E.pilogue:

'[he 3ina1 v4ccount
" J( Then the goal of life is attained,

V V one achieves the reparation of all
wrongs, the healing of all wounds, the
righting of all failures, the sweetening of
all sufferings, the relaxation of all strivings, the harmonizing of all strife, the

unraveling of all enigmas, and the real and

full meaning of all life-past, present and
future. (Meher Baba-Life At It's Best)
"In the eternity of existence there is no
time. There is no past and no future, only
the everlasting present. Therefore, in eternity nothing has ever happened and nothing will ever happen. Everything is happening in the unending NOW, if there is
anything happening at all; because all that
has apparently happened, all that is apparently happening and all that will ever
apparently happen in the illusory cosmic
universe is all that which God has already
dreamt the moment
His own original infinite whim surged
as "WHO AM I?" So, really speaking
nothing has happened and nothing will
ever happen. (Meher Baba-God Speaks)

Painting by Katie Rose

~eher ~aba 3peaks'
"9111 waspart ojan unfoldingglobalplanfor nies. Around 50,000 people of different
spiritual awakening,"saysIndian Proftssor. nationalities worked there and on 9/11, as
12 December 2009 Asian Tribune
he terrorist attacks on New York's
iconic twin towers of World Trade
Centre in September 2001 were part
of unfolding Avataric Divine Plan for
global awakening and resurrection', says a
leading Indian academic. Prof Jagadambi
S. Rathore adds: "I reflected on 9/11
deeply. I am convinced that suffering of
this magnitude had an Avatar Meher Baba
connection. It marked the unfolding of
an Avataric Divine Plan". Rathore is an
authority on Meher Baba's divine message.
A scientist by training and temperament,
and an academic by profession, he is
heading the Meher Spiritual University,
which is a first of its kind virtual university.

T

http://www.meherspiritualuniversity. org
Elaborating on his interpretation of the
terrorist attack that shook the world, the
professor speaks about a visit of Meher
Baba to Wall Street during his maiden
visit to the United States in 1931. "No one
was told the purpose of the visit. The great
spiritual significance of Babas brief visit to
Wall Street is now becoming clear."
Wall Street in New York is the financial
capital of USA. World Trade Center with
its twin towers was the symbolic heart of
Wall Street. It housed numerous international and American investment banks,
brokerages law firms and service compa-

hijacked jets crashed into the towers, the
edifice came down in a stroke, taking the
lives of the innocents.
It was the image of a bubble pricked by
a needle, Prof Rathore, who has authored
Shore to Shoreless", avers. That day, September 11, 2001, he was in Bhopal, a central India city visited by Meher Baba many
times. As the sun was setting, he and his
colleagues were getting ready to leave for
Ahmednagar to participate the next day in
the lighting of sacred fire at Meherabad.
The practice of lighting fire, Dhuni, as it is
called, on the 12th day of every month goes
back many years. Meher Baba Himself had
lighted the first sacred fire at Meherabad.
A news update on the TV drew their attention. "As I saw a jet airliner hit one of
the buildings of World Trade Center and
its top engulfed by fire and smoke, the great
spiritual significance of the tragedy struck
me," Prof Rathore said in an e-mail interVIew.
At 2pm on November 6, 1931 Meher
Baba sailed into New York harbor on board
the S.S. Roma. Reaching there Meher
Baba repeated His statement which He
had made earlier before commencing His
mystic silence on July 10, 1925: "I have
come not to teach, but to awaken. "
Before leaving the Big Apple, Baba
wished to be driven around Wall Street.
Jean Adriel drove Him in a car around the

place dotted with high rise buildings. It was
a Saturday and the streets were virtually deserted. Jean was thinking to herself, "How
ephemeral and unreal is this money madness." The next moment, pointing to the
skyscrapers, Baba smiled at her and gestured, "It is all a bubble, so easy to prickl"
Says Prof Rathore: "Babas words were
significant. What had happened on Sept
11, 2001 aptly fits the image of a bubble
pricked by a needle."
1931 was the year when Avatar Meher
Baba, along with three companions, made
His very first tour of the West. On September 11, 1931, Baba put His feet on European soil at Marseilles at Sam. Two days
later on 13 September, an American scientist Thomas Watson and his wife met Baba
and on the 15th they invited Him to their
country, saying, "America is the country for
a great spiritual worker like you. You must
go there." Thomas offered to make arrangements for Meher Babas visit. "If you
permit me, I shall make all the necessary
arrangements for you and your group to
visit New York. On behalf of the American
people, I extend my heartiest invitation to
you to come to the United States."
Meher Baba accepted the invitation,
because in the unfolding of His Divine
Plan, "America has a major role to play."
In an interview with British journalist Paul
Brunton (November 23, 1930), Meher
Baba said: "I shall change the history of the
whole world. As Jesus came to impart spiri tuality to a materialistic age, so I have come
to impart a spiritual push to present-day
mankind. America has a tremendous future
and will become a spiritually-minded nation. America is destined to lead the world
spiri tually."
Brunton conducted the interview when
Meher Baba was living in a cave dug by His
followers atop Meherabad hill. It was called
Panchvati cave. After Baba completed His
work from the cave, Panchvati was pulled
down. Today a plaque stands at the place.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Asian Tribune.
"Shore to Shoreless available in the Love
Street Bookstore. $14

TJ

~i9ht 'Chis fBe
~eher

fBaba's Samadhi in 2040?!

A reader sent me this from the Pune Times is the second richest in India. On holiMirror
days and weekends, the number goes up
to five lakh [500,000]and during festivals,
it exceeds eight lakh. Though most devotees are from Maharashtra and Andhra
ow
Pradesh, a large number come from other
parts of India. In recent years, the shrine
has been attracting devotees from abroad.
By Santosh Andhale ,July 27, 2009
Shrine trustees said that most devotees,
n a year's time, the trust managing the
Sai Baba shrine plans to have a spiritual especially the young, were interested to
theme park like the one in Singapore at a know more about the life of the saint. For
cost of Rs 50 crores [500 million rupees, their benefit, the trust came up with the
plan of a park with laser shows that could
aprox. $11,000]
The Shri Sai Baba Sansthan which relate the story of the saint's life through
manages the Sai Baba shrine at Shirdi, is the medium of light and water fountains.
planning a 25-acre spiritual theme park at The trust said that two 40-minute shows
a cost of Rs 50 crore and is looking for could be shown in the park for devotees,
international firms with expertise in cre- which will be located about a kilometer
ating theme parks like Sentosa Island in away from the temple .
Singapore for the project.
The trust has already asked companies
On a normal day, over one lakh interested in the project to submit their
[100,000] people visit the shrine, which 'expression of interest' document. The

spiritual theme park is expected to be
ready in a year. "W e have already made a
provision of Rs 50 crore for the project.
Entry into the park will be free. We are
modeling the show on the lines of the
one at Sentosa Island in Singapore," said
Jayant Sasane, chairman of Shri Sai Baba
Sansthan.
Several new facilities have been planned
for Sai devotees. An airport is on the cards
and one can now get darshan passes from
Sansthan's Mumbai office, which means
no waiting in a long queue at the temple.
There will also be an 18-storey Sai Tower
built in place of its office at Dadar, where
devotees will get Sai Baba-related material. Outstation devotees can stay here before their journey to Shirdi.

"Xaylor Fautner was, like, even more hot
than I thought he would be!"Jennifer sighed
dreamily, "He is, like, to die for!""Well I'm
glad you enjoyed Bilight Jennifer, but The
Attack ofthe Humans was even scarier than
I thought it would be!" Zax exclaimed, his
voiceshaking. Klaxrolled her eyes"Oh come
on Zax, it wasn't that scary!" Before Zax
could respond Jennifer cried out, "OMG!
someone was in our house!!!" Klax and Zax
looked to where she was pointing and saw
the partly eaten cheeseburgers. "Look Klax,
someone took a bite out of yours, and mine
too!" Zax shouted. ''And someone ate mine
all up!"Jennifer pouted. "D on't worry honey
it's not such a big deal, we can order takeout." Klax soothed. "B-b-but what about
the intruder?" Zax stammered. "What if
it's ... a human!" "Oh don't be silly!" Klax
reprimanded, "It's probably just a lost baby
creature looking for a snack. I'm sure its long
gone by now." Comforted but not entirely
reassured, Zax stepped into the living room
but ran out screaming."Oh dad, is this one of
your pranks?" Jennifer asked nervously. "No
Jennifer, someone was in the living room
too, and whoever or whatever it was, it broke
your chair!""Oh why is it always my stuffi'''
Jennifer complained. "Now, now. Like I said
you guys,whatever it was it is probably gone
now" Klax said, sounding worried for the
first time. She went into the living room

and upon further inspection reported nothingwas there. "Like I said, it's probably gone
now. Let's go upstairs and take a short nap
in our pods. It's been an exciting couple of
hours." Zax and Jennifer agreed and they all
went upstairs.
"H ey someone's been sleeping in my pod.
The dream monitor said they were scared
and woke up." Zax chuckled "Well no wonder, it was set on nightmare!" "Someone's
been sleeping in my pod too!" Klax pointed
out. "The dream monitor said they woke up
disgusted." Klax chuckled again "I would be
too; it was set to unicorns." Suddenly Jennifer shrieked. "Someone been sleeping in
my pod and they're still there!" Zax looked
over and screamed as if being attacked. "It's
a human. Don't look into its eyes!" Hearing
this Charlotte woke up and screamed even
louder. She ran out of the house, grabbing
some exotic samples for Ms. Wilson as she
went. Charlotte hopped into her spaceship,
set a course for Earth and the alien family
never saw her again.

,Laser Show ,Like One
at Sentosa 2V in Shirdi

I

Kids' Comer cant.from page57

of the chair exclaiming,"Wow that chair is
waaay too soft!"She walked over to the third
chair, which she thought was just right, until she broke it. "O ops" Charlotte whispered
guiltily as she backed away"I hope the aliens
won't be mad." At the thought of hostile
aliens Charlotte turned around and ran up
the stairs. She slammed the door behind her
as she looked at her new surroundings. It appeared that she was in a bedroom, if you can
call floating pods beds that is.
There were three pods, one pink and
flowery, one all back, and one all purple.
Charlotte was very tired at this point so she
decided to take a nap in one of the pods.
In each pod she noticed a strange floating
bubble-like device on the door of the 'beds'.
(It was a dream monitor). First she tried
the black pod. She fell asleep, but dreamed
about monsters and freakyclowns.Charlotte
woke up scared out of her wits. She moved
on to the pink flowery pod. She fell asleep,
but this time she dreamed about unicorns,
flowers, and gumdrops. Charlotte woke up
disgusted and moved on to the purple bed.
She fell asleep and dreamed of Ms . Wilson
congratulating her on her wonderful journey
to Mars and all the scientific evidence she
had collected. Charlotte slept peacefullyand
therefore did not hear the three aliens come
home.

I8

THE END
The moral of the story is: Don't break and
enter a house, especially if you're on a different planet and if you called for back up,
it would take them three years to get where
you are!

(jJeads on One StritlfJ r:Eilgrimage

CatchinfJ
r:Erasad

~UfJUSfI 20IO

T

he 'Beads on One String' pilgrimage is becoming an established journey
through India, following the trail that Don
Stevens and other pilgrims have taken since it
started in 2004. The pilgrimage includesvisits
to spiritual sites in India that are sacred to the
traditions of Hinduism, the Jains, Buddhism
and Islam. What follows is a description of
the 2010 pilgrimage, with the understanding
that there may be slight adjustments in the
final itinerary.
The intention of the pilgrimage is to experience the common thread ofthe Oneness
of God which permeates the diverse paths to
the Divine. This pilgrimage is also intended
to involve people ofall faiths who have a sincerewish to join, in companionship, and who
long for the resolution ofthe terrible religious
conflict that is so prevalent today.
The next pilgrimage is planned for August
4-20,2010.
Delhi is the starting point of this journey,
where the group will stay for 2 nights. Pilgrims will visit the Qgtub Minar, a magnificent tower of red sandstone and marble, inscribed with versesfrom the Koran, originally
built in the 13th C. as a minaret to exclaim
the faith of Islam in northern India. The
tomb of Mahatma Ghandi, one of the most
important political and spiritual figures ofthe
20th centaury, will also be visited.
From Delhi the group will travel by train
to the medieval town of Ajmer in Rajastan, to the dargah of the great Sufi Master
Mu'innnudin Chisti. This is the tomb/shrine
of The Qgtub-e-Irshad (axis or hub of the
spiritual hierarchy) of his time who was responsible for bringing Sufism to India in the
12thC. This shrine welcomes all faiths.
The group will then travel onwards to
Mount Abu, once a hill station of the British Raj, beautiful and cool, with an ancient
Hindu and Jain history.A road from the town
winds upwards, past an ancient Hindu temple set into the natural rock of the Dilwara
Jain Temple complex.The Vimal VashiTemple is the focus here; exquisitely carved from
luminescent white marble, it is dedicated to
the first Jain T rrthanker or Guide, Ardinath,
and a sacred place ofworship.
After spending two nights in Mt, Abu
the journey will continue to Mahabaleshwar,
high in the Western Ghats. We will stay for
two nights and visit several important places,
including the impressive 16th C. Pratapghar

Fort of Shivaji which overlooks the town of
Satara.This fort, magnificent in its ruins, was
where this great spiritual warrior king finally
stopped the flow ofIslam to the Hindu south.
Meher Baba often visited this area with his
eastern and western devotees, and Kitty Davy
in her book 'Love Alone Prevails' remembered 'It is a beautiful spot. A mass ofwoods,
valleys and hills.' The pilgrims will also visit
the cave, known as the Panchgani Cave,
which Meher Baba had constructed for His
meditation and seclusionwork.
Following Mahabaleshwar, the group will
travel to Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, an
important centre of Hindu and Islamic culture. This is where Meher Baba completed
His New Life phase in the Manonash Cave,
located in the rock of the surrounding hills.
The group will visit this important site and
stay in the Meher Baba Centre situated in the
Jubilee Hills region. This beautiful and tranquil place is built on the curious rock formations that surround the whole area.
From here the group will visit Aurangabad
and the Ellora Caves, famous for the numerous Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Temples
carved from the living rock. The Lonely
Planet Guide states that; , India's three great
religions and their coexistence at one site
indicates a lengthy period of Religious tolerance...The Masterpiece is the astonishing
Kailasa Temple and is the world 's largest
monolithic sculpture.'The group will share a
meditation in the KailashTemple which Meher Baba instructed Don to visit and to film.
We will also discoverthe simple beauty ofthe
Buddhist andJain caves,particularly Cave 10,
Viswakarma, where an enormous statue of
the Buddha sits in silent meditation .
As Don Stevens writes of the visit in
2009- 'The entire Ellora Caves complex has
an intense atmosphere of charged presence
and one feels that one can pause anywhere
at any time and begin any type of observance
of one's personal devotion and search for the
Truth.'
Following the day at Ellora, the group will
visit the neighboring Valley of the Saints
which contains the tomb of the perfect master Zar Zari Barkash and the cave of Sai
Baba, one of the five perfect masters who
brought Meher Baba to earth as the Avatar.
After a second night in Aurangabad, the
cent. p.31

Michael Da Costa,
England
ow much Prasad did Meher Baba give
out in this advent, I wonder? Many
thousands of souls would travel great distances to receive a smile or a hug, and leave
contented, munching on a banana or some
candy,given by their Beloved Lord. In smaller intimate groups He would sometimes play
with them by throwing the Prasad, looking
one way and then throwing it to someone
sitting in the other direction, much to everyone's amusement.
Whatever Baba did usually had layers of
meaning and significancewhich the ordinary
mind can rarely fathom, but in His compassion He did at least explain that Prasad creates a link between Himself and each lover
as a gift from God to man, and that the real
Prasad was not the candy or the fruit, but the
inestimable gift of Baba's divine Love with
which they were infused.
Although we shall have to wait 700 years
before we shall be able to receivePrasad from
Meher Baba's own hand, I believe that we
still have the opportunity to play the game
of catching- His-Prasad, the real Prasad, His
divine Love. This Prasad is available at all
times to one and all, and Baba is forever on
the look-out for any sincere soul who is ready
to receive it. And so His divine Game continues eternally, and we have to be constantly
vigilant,ever at the ready to catch it ifit comes
our way. It might sometimes seem that Baba
is looking in a different direction, but more
likelyit is our attention which has strayed; so
it is up to us to stay on our toes and keep focussed on Him at all times. Ifwe don't, when
His Love-Prasad comes flying through the
air in our direction we might see it too late
cant.p. 31

H

::Avatar" Comes to ~1:Irtle (j3each
Part One
Kenneth Lux, Myrtle Beach
n December 16,2009, the film "Avatar" opened in the cinema complex
at the Myrtle Beach Mall, right across
Highway 17 from the Meher Spiritual
Center in South Carolina. Immediately I
felt that this was significant. I knew that
many Baba-lovers here might discount
the importance of this event, seeing this
action film as "not spiritual," having nothing to do with Baba, and viewing it merely
as another Hollywood production. But I
thought that such a reaction would miss
the most special nature of this occurrence.
When the Meher Center was established in 1944, it's safe to say that almost
no one in this country had ever heard the
word 'Avatar." In the glossary of Infin ite
Intelligence, a recently discovered and published book by Meher Baba, the definition
of this word is given as follows: "Avatar (adj. Avataric) (in Discourses and God
Speaks): The total manifestation of God in
human form on earth, as the eternal living
Perfect Master; the direct descent of Reality into illusion; the Savior, the Highest
of the High, the Ancient One. Also called
the God-Man, the Messiah, the Buddha, the Christ, the Rasool, the Sahebe-Zaman, Language-(from Sanskrit)
Indian: avatar: a descent or alighting; the
descent of a god on earth; the incarnation
of Vishnu. Derived from the Sanskrit verb
auatarna, to descend." Then somehow,
through a process that would make an interesting academic study (if it has not been
done already), the word has slowly come
into the culture.
First, I believe, the word entered in
literary contexts in which certain figures
were said to be avatars of something. An
example of this would be a statement that
"Agatha Christie is an avatar of mystery
writers."Then the word branched out into
other contexts and uses. There is a spiritual training that people can sign up for
in which they become "avatars," and this
movement has a journal called "Avatar."
More recently, computer games were developed in which players can choose a
figure to represent them in the game, and
this figure is called their avatar. A similar
device appears in online chats and other

O

20

Internet uses. Now with this movie, which Route 17, and to the entrance of the Meis heading to be the biggest moneymaker her Center. As he did this, I found myself
of all time, the word 'Avatar" is spread bothered by the designation "3D" after the
around all over the country and the world. word "Avatar." Somehow it seemed a little
And so it has come to Myrtle Beach, play- too "media-centric" and took away from
ing in the Myrtle Beach Mall, with the the plain majesty of the word 'Avatar."
marquee reading 'Avatar" directly across
But then, a few days later, I attended
the highway from the Meher Center.
one of Adele Wolkin's informal talks in
Now let us remember the sadness that the Original Kitchen at the Center. At one
some of us felt when we heard that in the point she said, 'As good as the paintings of
past Elizabeth Patterson had sold off land Baba are, I prefer photographs. In the phoacross the highway that belonged to the tographs Baba sometimes can come out of
Center to a corporation, and that sale led the picture in 3D." OK, Baba, I get it. And
to the building of a mall on that site. The then I thought that the Avatar could be
reason for her doing this, of course, was understood as abstract God appearing on
that this money would become part of the earth in 3D. But as far as the film itself
Meher Center endowment. And so the goes, it still seemed to me that on the level
mall was built, first called the Briarcliffe ofits content it had little or nothing to do
Mall, then changed to Colonial Mall, and with the idea ofAvatar as we know it. But
then I spoke to Richie Blum, who takes
most recently to Myrtle Beach Mall.
But with this event of the movie play- over at this point.
ing directly across from the Center, these
Part Two
two phenomena come together in a most
interesting way.The mall being there, built
on what was 300 acres of natural wood- Richard Blum, Myrtle Beach
he film "Avatar" is considered by
land and once part of the Center, becomes
many as the most important movie of
the setting for this word 'A vatar" now being displayed high on the marquee for all the decade in terms of advancing the techon the highway to see, and if approaching nology of filmmaking. James Cameron,
drivers glance across the road, there they the director, created new technologies in
can see the entrance to the Center (and order to make the movie, which resulted in
coincidentally, this gated entryway was the most expensive film ever shot. As we
moved several years ago, making it even have seen, the movie is also very important
more visible to motorists heading out from a spiritual point of view, because of
of the mall). So what the Center is, the the use of the word 'Avatar." As I see it,
Home in the West of the Avatar of the the word 'Avatar" has three distinct meanAge , is now labeled for a period of time in ings in relationship to the content and crebig marquee letters . We might even imag- ation of the film.
The first meaning refers to the title and
ine in a fanciful way that the reason for the
mall's coming into existence and the word how the term is used inside the body of
'Avatar" moving into
a prominent place in
our culture is so that
this confluence could
happen, and who
knows where this
may eventually lead?
And so Greg Butler, while I looked
on, took his video
camera out into the
mall and under the
marquee and panned
from the word "Avatar" on it, across L:.o_ .................._ _

T

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Photos by Greg Butler

the film. The story takes place 150 years
into the future, when science has progressed to the point where it can create artificial,genetically engineered life.An avatar is a genetically bred test-tube creature
who contains a hybrid of human DNA
with the DNA of the humanoids living on
a distant planet called Pandora. The humanoids, called Na'vi, are 10 feet tall, bluish in color, and have a tail. In most other
respects they are like humans from Earth.
When it is "born," a test-tube-bred
avatar looks just like a Na'vi humanoid of
Pandora, but it has no mind ofits own. Its
body is simply an empty vessel.It requires
an Earth-born human to enter into the
body and control it.
To do this, a human controller lies inside
an MRI-like machine. When it is turned
on, the human driver loses consciousness
of his own body, and his consciousness enters the body of the avatar. Living inside
the avatar, the human is able to breathe
the air of Pandora, move, run, talk through

his avatar-basically do everything that a Na'vi
of Pandora can do.
The human's consciousness remains
inside the avatar
until his avatar
goes to sleep. Then
the human wakes
up in his body back
inside the MRIlike machine.
The
second
meaning of the
term "Avatar" relates to the fact
that the hero,Jake,
ends up becoming
a savior to the Na'vi race of humanoids.
Their planet is being invaded by Marines
from Earth, and the Na'vi, in order to survive, need help to counter the attack. Jake,
a former Marine, and now a controller of
an avatar, comes to their rescue.
But more than that, Jake fulfills an ancient prophecy. The prophecy concerns
the ability to ride a wildly dangerous but
beautiful red flying dragon called a Toruk.
There have only been five riders of a Toruk
throughout the history of Pandora. Each
of them possessed special powers. When
Jake flies the red Toruk dragon, not only
does he win the respect and trust of the
Na'vi, but they also look upon him as a
spiritual personage. He rallies them, designs a strategy, and defeats the Marines,
saving the Navi from extinction .
In the end, Jake undergoes a final transformation of consciousness from his human form to live permanently in his avatar
body. To do so, he must pass through the
Na'vis' God, the holy tree. Thus Jake ful-

fills the prophecy of a recurring savior,and
plays the role of an avatar to the people of
Pandora.
The third meaning of the word "Avatar"
concerns the actual making of the movie,
and not the story itself All of the characters on Pandora, and the entire world,
are computer generated. In order to control characters, James Cameron employed
a motion capture technique. Motion capture is a means by which actors' movements are captured by video cameras and
used to move computer-animated characters. Motion capture has been used before to make films and video games, but
Cameron took it to a new level.I won't get
into the technical details, but suffice it to
say that the computer-animated characters looked so real, and displayed so much
human emotion, that there was no difference between live characters and animated
characters. Also, the fantastic world of
Pandora looked incredibly realistic. These
effects represent a major breakthrough in
filmmaking.
There is also the common use of the
word "avatar" meaning a computer-generated character inside a computer game
that represents a player.Often players create their own avatars. They may look like
themselves, like other people, or even like
fantastic creatures.
The point is that motion capture, and
the way Cameron employed it, is the same
as using an avatar in a computer game. In
other words, the actors acted, and as they
acted they controlled a computer-generated character. They controlled an avatar.
Thus we have the interesting, and I consider genius, use of the word: using avatars to make the movie, and avatars as the
theme of the movie
cont. 011pg. 28

2I

~vatar
Harry Thomas, Los Angeles
February 10,2010

Part A

F

irstly, I am deeply indebted to Kenneth Lux and Richard Blum for their
articles on the movie "Avatar." Without
their written expressions, I wouldn't have
generated this piece precisely because
their articles inspired me, and from that
inspiration, ideas flowed accompanied by
the desire to write. In this article I want
to explore ideas not presented in the
other two essays and to approach certain
of their themes in novel ways. As an example, I will highlight select numerical
correspondences that to me indicate a
conscious and intended effort on the part
of Me her Baba . The label that I've affixed
to this occurrence is: Auataric time signature. In other words, the numerical patterns, in my estimation, are indicative of
Baba manipulating events at a high level
for a specific work-related purpose.
I agree with both of their sentiments
that the film "Avatar" coming into our
midst at this time is significant and may
indeed carry a partial charge of Baba's
Manifestation in its presentation and
wake. It's important to bear in mind that
Meher Baba is still operative as the Avatar and will be for another sixty years
or so. In this sense, the film "Avatar" is
screening while the actual Avatar is still
working within a non-corporeal capacity.
I want to repeat Meher Baba's profound statement that He made to the
film world in 1932, which was highlighted in Richard's article. "I do not need to
tell you who are engaged in the production and distribution of moving pictures
what a power you hold in your hands .. ..
He who stimulates the imagination of
the masses can move them in any direction he chooses, and there is no more
powerful an instrument for stimulating
their imagination than motion pictures"
[Lord Meher 5:1656].
At this point, I want to display the numerical correspondences that I've labeled
as Avataric time signatures. I have done
Baba-related numerical reckoning before and it came to my attention during
this session that Avataric time signatures
(within my realm of observing the phenomenon) come in triplets-namely that
22

three distinct numerical correspondences
are connected to a given event.
Richard stated that in 1932 Baba visited Hollywood. He toured several studios, met with luminaries of the film
world including certain stars of the silver screen, directors and producers, as
well as provided poignant words about
this powerful medium. Baba returned to
Hollywood in the latter part of 1934 and
early 1935. He once again toured numerous studios but His primary focus on this
trip was advancing the film project. He
met with a multitude of film personnel
to propel this endeavor forward .
The year 1932 prominently stands out
as Baba's initial contact with the Hollywood filmmaking industry; therefore it
was an auspicious year in Baba's planetary
and universal working, at least from an
observable standpoint. And it's precisely
here that we encounter the first Avataric
time signature. By the time Meher Baba
visited Hollywood for seven days in the
latter part of May and early June of1932,
He was quite close to the seventh anniversary of His observing silence.
Doing basic math, from mid-1932 until late December of 2009 when "Avatar"
was released comprised a span of seventy-seven years. Those familiar with Baba's
life are aware of the significance of the
number 7. Citing an example, Baba delivered a magnificent discourse entitled:
The Seven Realities. In the master work
"God Speaks," there are seven kingdoms
of evolution beginning with the stone
state and through immense episodes of
successive unfoldment, culminate at the
human level, the seventh and final kingdom .
This evolutionary expression eventually delivers the fortunate soul to GodRealization, which happens upon the
seventh plane. Highly significantly, Meher Baba is the seventh Avatar beginning
with Zoroaster in our present historical
cycle of Messianic appearances. In my
estimation, 77 serves as a significant
number correspondence between the two
events.
We now move into the second Avataric time signature. Those who know of
my previous numerical work would be
familiar with a tool I use which is the
Chinese 60-year calendar. I will not ex-

plain its working here, but to be succinct,
it traces a 60-year cycle in which each
of the 60 years has a unique designation.
Therefore, at any given 60-year progression, the exact sign of 60 years previous
will reappear. In the Chinese system,
this is a noteworthy event and marks the
completion of a 60-year cycle.
On October 16, 1949, Meher Baba set
off on the New Life with twenty companions. December 18, 2009-when
"A vatar" was released-was 60 years
later, exactly two months and two days
afterwards. Astoundingly, the exact same
sign (yellow earth ox) existed for both
the New Life and "Avatar." From my
perspective, this constitutes the second
Avataric time signature, for I find it utterly inconceivable that this precise overlay resulted entirely from chance .
I will now highlight the third Avataric time signature that cascaded into my
mind this morning, upon which I realized the timing was superbly perfect. On
February 10 (I'm writing this article on
this date in 2010) in the year 1954 in
Meherastana, Meher Baba spelled "Avatar Meher Baba ki Jai" on His alphabet board, thereby formally proclaiming
the distinction he gave to this title, and
henceforth the term "Avatar" was affixed
to His legacy.
If we write February 10 in abbreviated
fashion, we get 2-10 (at least in America;
India and England would write it 10-2).
"Avatar" was released in the year 2009
but as of this writing, 2-10-2010, it is
still drawing huge audiences worldwide.
In the 56 years since this monumental declaration, this year initially marks
the near-synchronous match between
the day of declaration (2-10) and the
calendar year (2010). By adding a zero
between the month and day in the declaration date, a perfect numerical match
will ensue-(2010 / 2010). This marks
the first appearance of such a correspondence. Additionally, had "Avatar " been
released in December of this year, there
still would have been the aforementioned
match; however, it wouldn't have been
playing on the February 10th Avataric
declaration day. As of this writing of
February 10,2010, "Avatar"is stunningly
playing to worldwide audiences .

PartB
Ow I wish to focus on other aspects
of the film in which parts of Kenneth's and Richard's previous assertions
will be reiterated. I, too, firmly believe
that Meher Baba is using this film as a
veh icle to advance His Manifestation,
which, examining the historical record,
is steadily advancing. The year 1932, in
my observation of Meher Baba's history, marked the first instance of Baba's
extending His advent into the greater
world-one beyond His immediate
spiritual family and those close to this
group. In a Paramount newsreel shot in
London, Baba's lovely image was featured and He delivered His visionary
message of bringing the world's religions together like, "beads on one string"
[Lord Meher 5:1554].
Meher Baba also appeared in Time
magazine, and several newspapers recorded parts of His journey both in Europe and America. In England especially,
several newspaper articles raised the notion of Baba's being the Messiah (which
would be the Avatar). The Daily Herald
opened its article: "Revered by many as
the Messiah, Shri Meher Baba, the Indian Mystic, gave a children's party in his
bed-sitting room in South Kensington
yesterday" [Lord Meher 5:1576].
Also in 1932, Baba stated repeatedly
that He would break His silence in the
Hollywood Bowl on July 13, an event in
which His liberated human voice would
have been carried by radio and reported
in newspapers worldwide. This didn't
happen, for Baba did not return to California as expected . In early June of 1932,
Baba and His mandali sailed for Honolulu en route to East Asia, whereupon
in China Baba effectively completed the
spiritual cable linking the East with the
West. Baba and mandali likewise walked
the streets of several Japanese and Chinese cities . Most certainly in numerous
ways, Meher Baba boldly reached out to
the greater world in that auspicious year
of1932.
I would ascertain that Baba's extending His nazar (glance) to the greater
world advances to the year 1956. In
July of that year, television crews were
on hand to film Baba's dedication of the
Barn and other celebratory acts at the
Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina. This event was scheduled to be broadcast nationwide but
never occurred; however, earlier in New

N

York, a TV crew filmed Baba and this
footage was shown locally. Also, television personnel attempted to film Baba
while He was in Washington, D.C., but
He avoided them. Although there was
no nationwide TV broadcasting of Baba
from the Meher Spiritual Center, nevertheless this filming (at Baba's "Home
in the West") seemingly indicates a time
when his Avataric message will be conveyed far beyond His immediate circle.
Starting in 1964 and continuing for
several years, Amar Singh Saigal transmitted the Beloved's words and prayers
over All India Radio, and Baba on several occasions heard these broadcasts.
Additionally, towards the end of the
Avatar's illustrious advent, Baba commissioned a small group of advocates
from America to advance His anti-drug
message. On Baba's behest, they were to
appear on radio and television in order
to broadcast this admonition to avoid
the use of dangerous drugs. However,
as a consequence of this action, Baba's
name, words and image (when television
was the medium) were transmitted over
the airwaves. Undoubtedly, millions by
means of radio and television received
this message.
I would then jump ahead to the year
1988 when Bobby McFerrin released

"Don't Worry ne nappy, a

UUUIILY lUUC

that traveled the world rhythmically
singing one of Meher Baba's oft-repeated messages within a catchy melody
and lyric base. With this uplifting song,
what the Beloved so often told His lovers reached a global audience.*
I will therefore posit that with the
release of "Avatar," Baba has again extended His spiritual reach into the
greater world, far beyond the present
parameters of His lovers and devotees.
It's important to realize that the word
"Avatar" is a part of the Beloved's title:
Avatar Meher Baba. Additionally, any
one of these three names can link an individual or group with the Lord, so the
word "Avatar" is extremely powerful.
As Kenneth pointed out, the lowercased word "avatar" is used in numerous
diminutive aspects; additionally, since
the founding of the Meher Spiritual
Center in 1944, the word has steadily
spiraled outward, and now with the release of the film "Avatar" the word has
woven itself into the planetary lexicon.
This occurrence of global acquaintance
with the word "Avatar" could only be the
result of Baba's Divine Will.
We must acknowledge that the role of
avatar has also been claimed by or for
a number of other figures on the spiri-

23

tual scene, and people will see the word
used in these contexts as well. Genuinely
great souls of the past such as Sri Aurobindo and Sri Ramakrishna have been
called avatars by their followers; and today there are others who falsely claim
the title of Avatar, as Baba warned they
would (He once said, "In the world today, there are about seventy-five persons
who claim to be the Avatar of the age,
both in the East and in the West-and
God help them all!" Lord Meher 11:
4057). There are even people who regard
Meher Baba as only one of several spiritual masters sharing the role of Avatar
(this does not conform to Meher Baba's
teachings or statements about Himself). All this confusion will one day be
cleared up as people come to understand
Meher Baba's explanations of the spiritual hierarchy.
Recapping the succession of expanding Avataric reach: In 1932 a Paramount
newsreel gloriously captured the flowing image and message of our Beloved.
Additionally, Baba was featured in several newspapers and Time magazine.
In 1956, NBC studios dispatched a TV
film crew to record Baba dedicating the
Barn among other activities at the Meher Spiritual Center.
Starting in the mid-1960's, All India
Radio broadcast the Avatar's words, and
by the late 1960's, appearing on radio
and TV were numerous anti-drug messages delivered by Baba's chosen missionaries. In 1988, the song "Don't Worry Be Happy" dispersed Baba's precious
words on a planetary scale. Finally, with
the release and continued running of
"Avatar" the motion picture, a global acquaintanceship with the Beloved's spiritual title has marvelously blossomed.
What's extremely interesting is that all
of these events, with the exception of
the All India Radio transmissions, had
a connection with America. These spiraling-out occurrences would seemingly
be indicative of the fulfillment of Baba's
proclamation that America would serve
as the epicenter of a destined spiritual
renaissance upon a planetary scale"

Parte
s Richard pointed out, one of the
uses of an avatar in the film is that
Jake Sully became a Messiah-a saving
Avatar-rescuing the people of Pandora
from both physical and cultural destruction at the cruel and indifferent hands of

A

marauding Earth-dispatched militaristic and economic forces. In this capacity,
it appears that Jake is not only an Avatar,
but specifically, the Pandora equivalent
of the Kalki Avatar.
Interesting, too, is that the Na'vi have
blue skin, reminiscent of how Lord
Krishna is traditionally depicted in sacred art. Jake became only the sixth
person to master the majestic Toruk, a
fiercely powerful winged creature, and
by doing so, joined a succession of great
personages, in this way indicating Avataric succession, as Richard previously
highlighted. Bear in mind, too, that the
Kalki Avatar is depicted as mounted
upon a magnificent creature, in this case
a white steed.
A sincere question arises as follows:
are there important messages embedded in this movie? My honest speculation posits yes for an answer. Jake 's actual name would have been Jacob (which
means "persevere with God") and within
a biblical context, Jacob was a Hebrew
patriarch who was renamed Israel. Jacob
and his younger twin brother, Esau, were
the sons oflsaac.Jacob's sons and grandsons were the founders of the tribes of
Israel. With Jacob Sully, one can ascertain the founding of a new society.
The name of the Na'vi's planet was
Pandora, who in Greek mythology was
the first woman sent to earth as punishment for Prometheus's crime of stealing
fire from the gods . Zeus gave her a box
which, when opened, let loose all human
misfortunes, but Hope remained in the
bottom of the box to comfort mankind.
Masked behind a gossamer-thin veneer of motion picture splendor, our dear
Earth is the planet Pandora. Worldwide
militarism, environmental destruction,
terrorist acts, financial instability and
other maladies grip our precious and
fragile globe. Is Meher Baba as the Kalki
Avatar (a role which He subtly indicated
on several occasions was His to assume)
poised to inaugurate a world-changing
role? My deepest sense tells me that if
such an appearance is waiting to materialize-which would be connected to
Baba's Manifestation and the breaking
of His silence-it is close at hand. The
implication is that it's not decades away
but soon, within a few years of this writing. This is purely speculation, but it's
deeply rooted in how I view things.
Are the negative forces on our own
planet as threatening to our material

and spiritual well-being as they were
shown as taking place on Pandora? Perhaps from Baba's vantage point of omniscience, they really are. Perhaps soon, we
on Earth will be in dire need of being
saved by Lord Meher as the Kalki Avatar-a role one would assume is filled
extremely infrequently and one always
initiating a world into a totally new,
spiritually charged dispensation.
In closing, it appears to me, based on
the numerical matches and the message
of the film "Avatar," that Avatar Meher
Baba is still busily and diligently engaged in His universal work. Is the real
Avatar telling us through the medium of
this film that humankind must shed the
destructive practices, institutions and
mind-sets that are currently debilitating
our spirits and ruining the planet?
Jake Sully as the Na'vi Avatar helped
the people of Pandora defeat the vicious
colonial forces of Earth and later (logically assumed) quite possibly became
the patriarch for a new world dispensation. Will Meher Baba as the Kalki
Avatar heroically assist us in a similar
transformative and redemptive act, afterwards serving as the Divine Patriarch
upon which the New Humanity, a wondrous, spiritually centered civilization,
will be based? Time, that great mystery,
will surely tell.
路See http://en.wikipedia.orglwiki/Don'f
Worry, Be Happy :
"Don't Worry Be Happy" is the title
and principal lyric of a song by musician
Bobby McFerrin. Released in September
1988, it became the first a cappella song
to reach number one on the Billboard
Hot 100 chart, a position it held for two
weeks. On the UK Singles Chart, the
song reached number 2 during its fifth
week on the chart. At the 1989 Grammy
Awards, "Don't Worry Be Happy" won
the awards for Song of the Year, Record
of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal
Performance. The song's title is taken
from a famous quote by Meher Baba.

~vatar is

in the ~ir/l

Harry Thomas, Los Angeles
n July 2 of2010, Paramount Studios
in conjunction with Nickelodeon
will release a film written and directed
by M . Night Shyamalan (India-born and
LlSi-raised, director of The Sixth Sense and
Signs, etc.) entitled "The Last Airbender."
This film is based upon an animated TV
series that was featured on Nickelodeon
that ran from 2005 (it premiered on February 21) until 2008 . Incredibly, the original tide of this Nickelodeon TV series was
''Avatar: The Last Airbender." Perhaps due
to James Cameron's mega-hit, the producers decided to delete "Avatar" from the upcoming motion picture tide.
Story background: In the mythical setting of this saga, there are four elemental nations: air, water, earth and fire. Select individuals within each nation can
bend (magically manipulate) their native
element. However, there is always one
uniquely special individual upon the planet
with the ability to bend all four elements.
This sublime personage is the Avatar, who
maintains world order and balanced peace
and is the spirit of the planet incarnate.
According to the film, the Avatar is the
same recurring soul, when upon death he
reincarnates into his successive mortal
embodiment. While a youth, he'll display
signs of"knowingness" indicating that he's
the reincarnated Avatar. At the appointed
time, he will undergo training and orientation that will equip him to assume this
noble role.
The Avatar's appearances are cyclic in
that each new entry into life, by fate decreed, places his spirit into the successive
elemental nation of which the order is: air,
water, earth and fire. There have been hundreds of Avataric appearances, all animated by one Avataric being. In a mountain
fastness, a magnificent temple holds hundreds ofwooden statues bearing likenesses
to the previous Avatars. Historically, there
have been both male and female Avatars.
Hopefully, the film will provide the audience with this Avatar-related back-story.
Although fictionally altered in its presentation, it nevertheless bestows a sense or
flavor of the method and working of the
real Avatar as we know Him through the
teachings of Avatar Meher Baba.
Within the fold of time, where the pres-

O

ent story takes place-resulting from a
wicked conquering campaign by the Fire
Nation-much devastation was made
upon the other three elemental kingdoms.
It was believed that all of the airbenders
were destroyed in this lethal campaign.
However, Aang, who was twelve years
old at the time, along with his flying bison Appa, became frozen in an iceberg.
When they thawed back to life 100 years
later, Aang was not only the last of the airbenders, but more importantly, he was the
current Avatar. Aang's mighty destiny will
be to thwart the continuing evil machinations of the Fire Nation, and the Avatar is
the only one with the ability to accomplish
this feat.
Although Aang is chronologically
twelve years of age, due to the century of
freezing he is actually 112 years old. When
''Avatar: The Last Airbender" began the
2006 season on Nickelodeon, the Meher
Baba family celebrated the Avatar's 112th
birthday-a perfect match. Had the threeyear run of the Nickelodeon series been
different or Aang's amount of iceberg
freezing altered, the numbers wouldn't
have synchronized. Perhaps this is a coded
message from the authentic Avatar-in
our case unembodied-indicating His
leaving a "deep-freeze" state to become exceedingly active in the world.
Besides the TV series, numerous little
books have been released by Nickelodeon
and at the top of each one it says: ''Avatar:
The Last Airbender." Above this tide are
four Chinese characters, which in translation say, "the divine medium who has
descended upon the mortal world." The
particular story is listed elsewhere on the
cover.
It appears that the real Avatar is ardently working towards getting His divine
tide out into the world. Perhaps soon His
name will follow. . .

~t

B

the c..JWovies

aba used to see many films; He said
that He did important work through
movies, but in the early days He would
usually stay for only half an hour or so before leaving.Uncle Chanji used to saythat
Baba alwaysleft during the most interesting and intense part of a film. The mandali would naturally follow Baba out, but
even as they left the cinema hall, their eyes
would be fixed on the screen, trying to see
as much ofthe movie as they could.
After sitting through half of The Ten
Commandments, Baba returned to Ashiana with Eruch, this time allowing the
others to see the whole movie. As usual
before retiring, He called Mehera and
the rest of us to Him. He said that this
movie was the best He had ever seen and
confirmed that when Moses went up to
Mount Sinai, he indeed heard the voiceof
God and was given the Ten Commandments. Baba also told us that Moses was
on the sixth plane and became God-realized at the time of his death. A year later
Baba had Adi, Sr. send Nariman a copy of
a letter from Cecil B. de Mille,the director
of The Ten Commandments. A Baba lover
in the United States had written to tell
him that Baba had seen his film and enjoyed it, and de Mille, who had met Baba
in Hollywood in the 1930's, replied that
he was happy to learn that "this venerable
religious leader" remembered their meeting. He also expressed his appreciation for
Baba's "...silent, prayerful work...and prophetic leadership."
Two days after Baba and the men saw
The Ten Commandments, Mehera and the
rest of us women went to see it. Dina was
in pitiful condition, and I seated her next
to me so I could comfort her. During the
scenesdepicting Moses' mother in terrible
agony over losing her son, Dina again
cried and cried, her empathy with Moses'
mother helping in her griefover the loss of
Khurshed.lf she had been spotted by her
neighbours or relatives, they would have
been shocked by her presence in a theatre
five days after her son's death. But when
we live in obedience to Baba, we have to
cast aside many worldly concerns, even if
that means being humiliated in front of
those who do not understand.
"Gift of God" Arnavaz Dadachanji

Space fJ3rothers to the ::Rescue?
Did Meber Baba predict that space aliens
would rescue peoplefrom a worldwide catastrophe connected with his Manifestation as
Avatar ofthe age?
Certainly not.

Kendra Crossen
16 March 2010
elow a posting that appeared under the
heading "Meher Baba Book Speaks
of Space Aliens" on 14 March 2010 at a
site called "Tall White Alien." (Thanks to
Marc Flayton for bringing it to my attention.) The writer states that Meher Baba
approved the publication of channeled
material along with his own statements, in
an appendix to a 1968 booklet published
in India, 61 Qpestions and Answers on
Meher Baba, compiled by A. C. S. Chari,
Society in West Bengal for Meher Baba,
Calcutta. The channeled material, supposedly issuing from "the Christ," posits
an end-time scenario in which ships come
from space to rescue people from catastrophe, and apparently Mr. Chari thought
this confirmed what Meher Baba had said
about the future destruction of threequarters of the world connected with his

B

Manifestation (see The Final Declaration). http://www.meherbabamanifesting.
com/new-page/the-final-declaration/
The end note to page 6321 of Lord
Meher (presumably written by Lawrence
Reiter, editor of the biography by Bhau
Kalchuri) states: "Before Maud Kennedy
heard of Meher Baba, in the 1960s, she
belonged to a Christian group called the
Universal Link at St. Annes on Sea, led by
a clairvoyant woman named Leibe Pugh.
This group anticipated 'the Second Coming of Christ' and believed Christ to be a
'Cosmic Being.' The Universal Link had
another group of Christians in Borup,
Denmark, and they claimed to receive
messages from beings in outer space or
some psychic dimension in the universe.
In October 1968, a devotee of Meher Baba's,]udge A. C. S. Chari of Calcutta, with
Baba's permission, published excerpts of
the messages from the Universal Link in
a pamphlet titled 61 Questions and Answers on Meher Baba. After that, Baba
forbade any more talk about beings from
outer space or space ships, supposedly indicating that 'Mankind is not ready for
such things....' Maybe when the Avatar
comes back in his next advent as a 'Master
Scientist' he will explain such mysterious
things to us humankind."
I heard that Harold Rudd had also been
interested in the Borup group at some
point. But I had been told a different version of the story of the publication, in
which the Mandali alerted Baba about the
Universal Link appendix, and Baba asked
that the Indian publisher remove the material in a revised printing. The second
edition was issued in 1969 as 84 Qpestions and Answers on Avatar Meher Baba,
without the channeled stuff. I am skeptical of what the writer saysbelow about the
material being removed by Baba-lovers
after his death, with its implication that
Baba approved it but his followers didn't.
I will try to verify whether what the Lord
Meher endnote says is really accurate.
Anyway, here is the post, with its titillating excerpts from the channelings:

Near the end of Meher Baba's
life, he approved the printing of
the book 61 Qpestions and Answers on Meher Baba which was
printed in 1968. Included in the
book's appendices were spiritual transmissions by the Borup
Group from Denmark that spoke
of a coming global catastrophe
caused by man, a tipping of the
Earth's axis, the Second Coming
of Christ and a spiritual uplifting
of mankind.
The transmissions also spoke
of Space Brothers coming to help
mankind. His followers, however,
found this too controversial, so
after Meher Baba left his body,
they stopped the book from being printed again. Here are a few
brief statements from the transmissions regarding Space Brothers and their Sky Ships:
â&#x20AC;˘ "We have told you we are
Brothers from Space who are
coming - and brothers always
help one another .... However, it
will only be possible to help those

26

who want this help themselves."
* "There are 18,000 worlds
that are inhabited by human beings .... by far most of the planets
in the universe are inhabited by
living creatures on one kind or
another."
* "Earth has managed to bring
forth a crop of human beings
who are sufficiently spiritually
developed to make the leap to the
level that is now to come. That is
why it would be against the Law
if Man were to wipe himself out
globally and this is why help is
now under way.... all of humanity will be able to perceive us as
they perceive motor-cars, aeroplanes and the like."
* "The contact you will be given from Space will cause you to
be totally changed."
* "Large parts of humanity will
be snatched away from Earth ...
and then return to the Earth
again - to an Earth which we
have changed in a way advantageous to Man....We shall come
with love....We shall come to all
religions of the world, and to all
outlooks on life."
* It is at this point and at this
time that we will come from
Space to Man on Earth. Now
is the time for our coming and
we approach all the people of
Earth in order to make them get
together united in one, true religious philosophy... .In the future,
the world will be governed from
one place and the Earth will only
be governed by people who have
achieved full spiritual understanding."
* "I have said that the Earth
will stand still for one second .. .
the Earth will simply tip over,
thereby altering the surface entirely. I have also told you that
while this is taking place, great,
great parts of humanity will be
evacuated up into huge spaceships."
The writer, Tom, adds: "this
info fits with what was shared to
me by an abductee friend of mine
who was told that mass abductions will occur in June of 2012
due to something major. He said

it was telepathic communication
and presumed it was some sort of
earth change. So the above info
makes sense. Notice all the earth
quakes. Good luck to all, what a
long strange trip it's been."

come from Venus, etc., this part of the explanation can be given."
-Irene H. Conybeare, Notes from a
Diary: Pimpalgaon, India,
February 1953," The Awakener Magazine, vol. 1, no. 4 (Spring 1954)

Makes sense? Good luck to
you, Tom!

2) Murshida Ivy Duce of Sufism Reoriented
Murshida Duce visited the Museum of
Natural History in New York with Meher
Baba in 1952, while He was recovering
from His first car accident. She wrote:
"As Mehera guided Baba's wheelchair,
I trotted along beside her, and during a
lonely stretch of corridor, I leaned over
and asked Him, "Have any of the people
asked you about flying saucers, Baba?"
"Baba gave me a knowing look, which
indicated that He suspected that I was interested also. "Yes,two people. I told them
that they do not come from other planets ."
-Ivy O. Duce, How a Master Works,
p.128

A

s the daughter of a science fiction
writer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
KendelLFoster_Crossen I have a fondness
for weird tales. I've read dozens of books
about UFOs, alien abductions, and the
like; I even chanced upon one book
written by a jesuit priest who cited Meher
Baba as a false prophet and a sign of the
approaching end times! My favorites are
the works that compare aliens to the beings
of Celtic fairy lore, and Alien Identities by
Richard Thompson, which includes Vedic
insights into UFO phenomena. However,
I take it all with a humongous grain ofsalt.
The 1968 booklet was first shown to
me by Nikos Colias around 1970. When I
later asked Lyn Ott in Myrtle Beach what
he thought about it, he said:
"If the wonderful space brothers come
and offer you a ride, don't get on!"
I like what Lyn said because I don't
believe we need to look for the help of
space aliens. We only need to hold on to
Baba's daaman (literally, the hem of his
garment). Do not worry about impending global catastrophe. Baba says: "If you
find yourselves in a perilous situation, cry
out my name loudly. I will then save you.
Even if you die, you should know that I
have saved you, because my protection is
real protection. I always protect my lover"
(Lord Meher 4:1276).
In at least two known instances, Meher
Baba discouraged his lovers from concern
about space ships from other planets:
1) Irene Conybeare:
"At Pimpalgaon, there was an opportunity to ask questions, for Baba was at
leisure, without visitors. So now was my
chance.
'Baba!' I said boldly,'Where do the Flying Saucers come from?'
Baba's face relaxed into a broad smile. 'I
would not answer that question for anybody, but to you only! They do not come
from another planet ....'
The rest of the answer, I feel, should not
be given out at present, but as books are
being published to prove that the Saucers

O

ne of the Mandali (I think it was
Bhau) told me that Baba was very
annoyed by these questions about UFOs.
Baba indeed said that there is human
life on 18,000 planets (as also stated by the
Universal Link), but he said that we on
our Earth would not make contact them:
"It is not possible to see all the universes
and the worlds. They are not visible even
with all the modem means. Nor will it be
possible for man to reach them or contact
them; yet, the scientists will come to know
about them" (Lord Meher 18: 6006).
However, these humans from other planets eventually reincarnate in our world in
order to be spiritual aspirants:
"There are 18,000 worlds in creation
which are inhabited, some by human beings with 100% intelligence, others with
lesser and varying degrees of it. But the
value of our Earth, where mind and heart
balance, is inestimable. For it is here and
here alone that one can go through the
process of involution and experience the
Subtle and Mental spheres, here alone
that God-realisation can be attained.
"Thus it is that souls (jivatrnas) from
other inhabited worlds finally take birth
on this earth for their emancipation, more
so during the Avataric advent when the
highest spiritual benefit is gained, and
most so when the Avataric manifestation
is greatest. Hence the present influx of
population on earth is but the natural outcome of the rush of migration from other

27

worlds, and the ones migrating from the
worlds of highest intelligence are responsible for carrying science to the peak it has
reached today.
''All this has been recurring since timeless ages in a never-ending tide and ebb.
Even this Earth expends itself in time, and
another earth takes its place. Science will
soon come to know a little of what I have
said." -Qyoted in T. K. Ramanujam,
Much Love (1994), p. 529)
Sheela Kalchuri Fenster reports in
her book Growing Up with God that as
a child she asked Baba lots of questions
about the people who incarnated here
from other planets, and she says Baba told
her how to recognize them (their faces
don't look "normal" and they look "scary,"
among other traits).
In 1962, after speaking of the thousands
of other planets to Westerners at Guruprasad, Baba added:
"But all this is not meant for you people.
It is all useful, though for posterity. For
you, it is sufficient to obey me, love me,
and hold on to my daaman. Then wherever I am, you will be also. Ifyou were to begin your inward journey, you would also be
with me, because I am also there on those
journeys. All this is illusory; God alone is
real." -Lord Meher 18: 6006

~'lJatar" Comes to Myrtle

Beach cant.from pg. 21

So we see that the word "avatar" plays
out on several levels, each with a different
meaning. There is the genetically engineered avatar creature; there is the Na'vi
savior, Jake; and there are actors using
avatars to make the movie. But the main
importance may very well be that the term
"avatar" is now a household word. And
having the word "avatar"implanted in the
minds of the masses may play out as an
important event, laying a foundation for
Meher Baba's Manifestation.
Avatar Meher Baba visited Hollywood
in 1932, and while at a reception in the
home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary
Pickford, He gave a message to those involved in the film industry. In the message
Baba states:
I do not need to tell you, who are in engaged in the production and distribution
ofmovingpictures, what a power you hold
in your hands. . . . He who stimulates the
imagination of the masses can move them

28

in any direction he chooses, and there is no
morepowerful instrumentfor stimulating
their imagination than the moving pictures.
Soon thereafter, Baba showed extreme
interest in movies, writing an outline for
a screenplay and then visiting Hollywood
again in 1935 with the intent of making
His movie. The movie was not made. But
was Baba laying a foundation for work
that might be done in the future? I think
so.And I speculate that a new type of film
technology might soon emerge, and that it
might very well playa role in Baba's Manifestation.
Since Baba gave His message back in
the 1930s, film production techniques
have greatly advanced, resulting in extremely engaging movies. Now the movie
"Avatar" has taken film production to an
even higher level, and I believe it prophesies the coming of a new type of film technology,called virtual reality.As in "Avatar,"
virtual reality will allow viewers to enter
a highly immersive, computer-generated
three-dimensional world. Wearing glasses
that create 3D stereoscopic imagery, viewers will feel as though they are actually in
another world, similar to how the characters in "Avatar"felt as they moved through
the world of Pandora.
Although the making of '~vatar" was
extremely expensive, the constantly decreasing cost of technology will soon
make that technology available to everyone. When that happens we will be able
to move our own animated characters,
or avatars, in much in the same way that
the actors moved their avatars to make
the movie. And like the characters in the
movie, we will be able to experience artificial worlds. These artificial worlds will be
so realistic, and so compelling, that people
may get lost in them.
In fact, it's already happened to some
extent with fans of the movie "Avatar."It's
been reported by CNN that after seeing
the movie some fans find the real world
so drab, and they miss the artificial world
of Pandora so much, that they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts
("Depressed After Avatar?"Jan. 11,2010).
And virtual reality will be even much
more engaging. With the potential to synchronize the sights and sounds of the artificial world with one's own brain waves,
as measured by low-cost EEG machines,
an overwhelming experience might well
be created. It may produce such powerful, hypnotic effects that it will induce

psychedelic-like experiences. And like
psychedelics, it will indicate to those who
experience it that there are other possible
realities beyond the physical world. And at
the same time it will impel people to seek
out those realities as well as a higher form
of guidance.
Just as the LSD days of the '60s led
many to seek out Meher Baba, so too
might virtual reality make people seek
Him out as the real Avatar.

"However far man
may fling himself
into outer space, even if he
were to succeed in reaching
the furthermost object in
the universe, man will not
change. Wherever he goes,
he will remain what he is. It
is when man travels within
himself, that he experiences
a metamorphosis of his self
It is this journeying that
matters, for the infinite
treasure - God - is within
man, and not to be found
anywhere outside ofhimselÂŁ
When mind soars in
pursuit of the things
conceived in space, it pursues
emptiness, but when man
dives deep within himselfhe
experiences the fullness of
existence."
Lord Meher Vol.18: 6216

40 \Days at c..Meherana!
A Report on Bhau's 2009 Visit
Christine Pearson, California
"To serve the Master is to serve one's own
Selfin every other self The Master dwells in
universal consciousness and wills universal
spiritual well-being. To serve the Master is
therefore to participate in his cause, which is
to serve all life. While sharing in the work 0/
the Master, the disciple may be required to be
in touch with the world But through moving
in the world in accordance with the work allotted him, he is in inward contact with the
Master as infinite Being. Therefore, by sharing in the work 0/ the Master, the disciple
comes closer to him and becomes an integral
part of his consciousness. Serving the Master
is the quickest means ofrealizing him."

Avatar Meher Baba

O

n the first night, I was sitting in the
dark on my bed looking out the window of the tent-cabin, which was to be my
home for the next 40 days, reflecting upon
all that had happened to bring me to that
point. Suddenly the moon, near full, rose
across the valley directly over a gap in the
hills and shone down on Baba's Cabin and
the creek. I was filled with a feeling of the
ancientness of the land and of our search
to find God. The symmetry and stillness of
the scene etched itself on my heart, which
overflowed with thankfulness to the Beloved for this chance to be with His lovers
in close proximity for 40 days. I thought of
Bhau and his team sleeping in the house
and all the others sleeping in their tents
in the woods. What an adventure-inner
and outer-was in store for us!
Two long-time projects-arranging
Bhau Kalchuri's tours to the West and
helping to establish Meherana as a universal spiritual center dedicated to Avatar
Meher Baba - had merged providing us
with a chance to live together for over a
month with our focus on serving our Beloved. Bhau's health was such that he was
unable to travel around the U.S. and yet
his work of spreading Baba's message in
the West was not finished. He needed to
stay in one place for several weeks where
people could come and share time with
him. Over the last 15 years, we have been
working on developing Meherana to the
point where it could be open year-round

for people to stay. Here was our chance to
remain open for 40 days of programs and
yet, when it happened, it was very different from what I had thought. Reality set
in. We didn't have enough staff, completed
facilities, or procedures in place for things
to run smoothly. If you looked at the
situation from a practical standpoint, we
weren't nearly ready and yet the 40 days
had already begun.
Never in the last 22 years had Bhau's
visits ever gone smoothly without having
to overcome various issues that would
invariably pop up. This was a record
year for Maya's resistance. The team of
Meherana workers had planned many
projects to complete before the 40 days
stay. A few projects were completed before,
some during, and some not at all. I took
refuge in the reality that everything was
not going to work out as planned and gave
up even being concerned about it, focusing
instead on being in the moment and doing
my best under the circumstances. The rest
was in Baba's hands.
On the first day a water line broke
and we lost 5000 gallons of water, then a
winter storm hit right in the middle of the
Spring Sahavas, followed some days later
by a heat wave. One really funny incident
happened during the prep for the first meal
at the Sahavas when a washing machine
hose sprung a leak resulting in a 10-foot

waterfall that nearly flooded the kitchen.
Suddenly a charming Iranian gentleman
rushed up to me speaking in Farsi.
Through an interpreter I realized that
he was telling me that he was a washing
machine repairman! He quickly got the
situation under control, we got the water
mopped up, and dinner was served on
time. There were many other challenges,
but, as the days passed by, the problems
seemed more and more insignificant in the
light of Baba's atmosphere at Meherana.
Bhau has been weaving stories about
Mastery in Servitude and the New Life
into his talks for years. Well, here was our
chance to step out of our regular lives and
try to serve the Beloved in a joint effort
for a period of time . For those of you who
have not been to Meherana I will give a
description of the facilities and how they
were set up during the 40 days.
The caretaker house, which has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms was given to Bhau
and his team. Bhau and Martin had the
master bedroom with their own private
bath. The two bedrooms on the other side
of the house were for Bhau's cooks (Mary
Hamilton and Shani Verchick) and the
other female team members (Janice Rieman, Chiana Cloudtree and Suzie Iirnura)
along with two women who filled the
roles of the main kitchen manager (Mary
Marino-Strong) and procurement-walla

(Joanna Tompkin.)
The living room had been set up with
Bhau's recliner chair, high speed internet
connection to broadcast his weekly chats,
and Indian TV satellite channels. Bhau
used the living room as his office, TV
room, and meeting room for giving talks.
He ate on a TV tray while watching Indian movies or soaps. Due to his health
and difficulty in moving about, Bhau never left the property for 40 days and only
left the house for short walks or to give
a talk at the Meeting Pandal if over 100
people were there. Otherwise all the talks
and visiting was done at the house and
this worked really well. He gave 9 talks at
the pandal during the 40 days and over 50
talks at the Caretaker's House.
Almost everyday Bhau gave two talks
- one in the morning and one in the
afternoon. Sometimes 40 or so people
would be there, sometimes only 10. It
was an intimate time with Bhau that was
reminiscent of past days when there was
a free exchange of conversation, jokes and
a flow of stories. He felt free to change
the schedule whenever he needed and we
would slide the starting and ending times
of the talks accordingly, Bhau was in an
excellent mood and his health steadily
improved. The difference in his health
at the beginning and end of the 40 days
was remarkable. The arrangement of not
traveling or moving around enabled him

to conserve his energy for sharing Baba
with us. He was especiallypleased to see so
many of his former hosts and friends come
to Meherana from all over the U.S. Seeing
and spending time with them went a long
way towards easing his disappointment of
not being able to travel as he used to.
Meanwhile, the accommodations for
everyone else were more basic. We stayed
in tents or tent-cabins and took bucket
baths. Others stayed in Mariposa at hotels or Bed & Breakfasts. Some stayed the
entire 40 days, some stayed a
~----week or two, and some came
on the weekends. In addition to those who stayed
overnight, we were surprised
by the numbers of day visitors that came from the San
Francisco and Sacramento
areas. All the meals for everyone but Bhau were prepared in the new open-air
Sahavas kitchen. For large
meals, we ate in the Pandal
but during quieter days we
set up tables to eat in the
kitchen and spent most of
our visiting time there. We
referred to this arrangement
as "the family kitchen."
Everyone was given cabinet & refrigerator space for
their food and they prepared
their own breakfast and
lunch. Chai and dinner were
joint efforts. Since Bhau's
talks were in the morning

.......

30

and afternoon it left us plenty of time to
have a leisurely dinner together sharing
stories and talking amongst ourselves in
the evening. Bhau's team either ate with
us or we sent food up to them if they were
too busy to come to the family kitchen.
Bhau preferred to eat by himself on a TV
tray while watching Indian soaps or videos as group meals were too exhausting for
him.
The kitchen arrangements did not always go smoothly, and we learned a lot
about group living. But, overall we had a
great time with many delicious meals and
I have some really lovely memories of being at table in the family kitchen sharing
food and stories. Those who stayed for
most of the time had reflective discussions
after the completion of the 40 days and we
came up with some solutions for a more
efficient organized group kitchen for the
future.
Besides living with Bhau on the premises, one of the best parts of the 40 days was
going to Babas Cabin everyday and taking walks around Meherana. Early in the
morning I would wrap up warmly and go
to Baba'sCabin. Always upon entering the
Cabin I experienced the feeling that Baba
had been waiting for me. Those twenty
minutes each morning transformed the
rest of my day. Except during the Spring
Sahavas,we didn't set any official times for
Arti and prayers and each spent time in

She could be found in the
pandal at all hours just sitting
and chatting. Thirty gallons
of chai was consumed along
with delicious meals prepared
with everyone's help.
The picture would not be
_ .......;."""--~1oiWI1I complete without a description of the storm that hit
right in the middle of the
Sahavas. It poured rain and
hailed. We purchased large
~--"i:;-_~ I patio propane heaters for the
kitchen and meeting pandal which helped immensely
Baba's Cabin as they felt drawn.
We were literally living outside. Going in keeping everyone warm . We danced
anywhere from my tent-cabin required a to keep warm and the campfire was kept
walk - down to Baba's Cabin, to the kitch- going all-day and evening. Although the
en, to the toilet and bathhouse, up to the cool weather was a challenge, it increased
caretaker's house. I found myself walking our sense of adventure as we settled in for
or sitting outside at all times of day and the first few days of our 40-day stay.
night and in all kinds ofweather. This was
On three Saturdays in June, groups of
a wonderful experience since after all, we Sufis came from Walnut Creek in charter
were in the woods. The stars were incred- buses and their visits were filled with muible, the sunrises and sunsets noticed daily, sic and laughter. Bhau was very happy to
and the animals and birds were our com- see them and loved having so many people
panions. I think just living outside for 40 at his talks. The musical performances by
days at Meherana would give someone the the Sufi artists were impressive and enterfeeling of a special interlude with Beloved taining . The Sufis joined in the kitchen
Baba. Not that we didn't suffer from the work like a group of worker bees and the
cold and then the heat. Who in their right meals were prepared and cleaned up in remind, at the age most of us are, would cord time. We saw many old friends from
camp for 40 days? It was a truing experi- years ago and made new friends.
We also had one weekend dedicated to
ence of existing without most of the modern conveniences that one is used to, and children. It was towards the end of the
I savored it. (Of course, I was in one of trip when the weather was warm and the
the tent-cabins and the kitchen and pan- kids had a one and a half hour water fight,
dal did have running hot water, electricity which started by tossing "glover buddies"
and wireless internet access.) One of the to each other in the wading pool, set up
highlights of this outside living etched in the pandal. Glover buddies are a mediin my mind was sitting around the camp cal glove version of a water balloon and
fire in the mornings and evenings. How they have the most amazing resistance
many previous lifetimes have we done to being broken. While standing in the
that? What an opportunity to spend time pool, the kids started tossing and catching
together and chat at the beginning and the 1-foot wide glover buddies to each other
in large stainless steel salad bowls from the
end of the day!
We started off the programs with the kitchen and soon enough the bowls were
four-day Spring Sahavas on Memorial being used as shields and water scoopers.
Day weekend. Raine Eastman-Gannett The noise and amount of water being
filled the days with music and song. Caris flung around was awesome. For Bhau's
Arkin, Larry Thrasher and others joined entertainment the children performed a
in the performances. A special treat was rap version of the song, Don't Worry Be
Raine's dynamic leading of a choral group. Happy, accompanying themselves with
We had Arti and prayers in Baba's Cabin tablas and drums.
Towards the end of40 days,the full moon
and a Dhuni on the last evening. Bhau
gave six talks in the pandal, bundled up again appeared over the valley view from
like an Eskimo because ofthe coolweather my tent-cabin window. What had I really
and having just come from the heat of the experienced during my stay at Meherana?
Indian summer. Adele Wolkin was with us A common expectation is to have "a good
to share her life stories ofbeing with Baba. time" or "to have fun", both of which are
_.3.~r?J1

often dependent on being "entertained" by
friends, talks, stories, music, and food. All
ofthat happened, but it was so much more
than that, with the main difference being
the purpose of trying to be more present
each moment with Beloved Baba and
attempting to serve Him. Did we serve or
please Him? We certainly kept busy, but it
was Beloved Baba who kept us with Him
and allowed us to help. The 40-day stay
was an invitation, a call from the Beloved
and He did not disappoint us. Because
we came and tried, Baba was with us in
a way that transformed all the tasks and
activities of those days. That made all the
difference, and each one who participated
received their own experience of their
inner journey to treasure.

'Beadson One String... ' contfrom p. 19

group will proceed to the tomb/shrine of
Meher Baba at Meherabad near Ahmednagar and stayat the new Pilgrim Retreat there
or return home viaMurnbai.This pilgrimage
is open to seekers of all faiths and is a journey
to be taken together as a group in the spirit
of companionship. It is being limited to between 30 and 40 people. It is alsohoped that
a number of youngpeoplewilljoin the group.
The cost of the pilgrimage is approximately
$1,100 US and some scholarships are available. To register, go to the website www.beadsononestring.com

.-.'
~
"

",

.:\:.

'Catching Prasad' cant.from p.19

and drop it; or even worse, we could miss it
altogetherand then 'curse the chancethat was
wasted'!!
So let's try to stay awake. He has LovePrasad galore in His Pockets, and His eyes
are darting around
..
Readywhen you are Baba!

-.
,
~

' ~'

".

.,J,,-

3I

~hat's 2fappeninn

at UUeherabode

:RecentEuests:
Our vAmartithi celebrations were made all the more joyful by having3arhad Shafa and ~ischa
~utenberg

come down from CWalnut Creek to speak with us and sing to us.

Our special guest for ~aba's
~irthday-also from CWalnut
Creek-was 'Dione Cobb, or, as
~aba famously named her, 3~,
which stands for ~aba's ~eloved
~aby. She told us wonderful
tales of her times spent with ~aba
as ayou11tJ girL

32

<We had a wonderful eclectic collection of musicians to sing and play for us before and afrer 37J's talk.

By special request. Charles openedtheprogram with his rendition
ofthe GujeratiArti-the line spoken in Englishfollowed by
singing it in Gujerat.
The Still Yet More ChamberPlayers. Chrisand Pris Haffenden,
provided their special brand ofincidentalmusic
John recites the Christian Prayer(see next page)
TamaraMark sings"The Rose"and Maureen Lehman sings"Love
is Strange" with Mike Campagnaaccompanying

J\:men
This prayer was composed by William Donkin at Meher Baba's request, based on various Christian prayers. It was recited
on September 17, 1954, in Meher Baba's presence, as well as on several other occasions. Contrary to what has mistakenly
been published over the years, Baba did 120t compose or dictate the prayer, but he did appreciate Donkin's effort.
(Note by David Fenster.)

34

Clockwisefrom top left:
The weatherwas sofine mallYdilledalfresco
Flowersfor the Beloved
LYlllleBerry readus the message that was sent 011
the occasion of Baba) birthday i1l1967, and its a
timeless message:
"J will bewith you all whogather forMy birthday to
celebrate My beillgamollgyou. 1 am wherever My
lovers are... My love will draw them to Me whose
hearts101lg to have a dip ill the OceanofLove."

Meher Baba is throwing a birthdayparty.
Come one, come all. Everyone is invited.
What a celebration. How grand it is.
Yourparty includes the whole world.
Once everyyear, the earth completes its orbit aroundthe sun.
In that time, everyone on theplanet has a birthday to celebrate.
Now the maker ofsuns and planets
has invited us tojoin his celebration.
What goodfortune has come to us.
To celebrate with the makeroflife, His birthday on earth.
Whenyou wereborn, a new agebegan.
A new birth oflove and truth, divine light and music, tv and cars.
Your party includes all ofmankind and angels unseen.
Eve1y011e is invited, to come and enjoy,
Devils and Saints, high and low, however rich orpoor.
There is nopretenses here.
No oneis left out ofyou1' come asyou areparty.

Whoever comes, will not leaveempty handed,
You havejust the right gift for each one.
Neither will anyoneleave, the sameas they came.
Yourali-pouserful Ioue;
transforms the mind and heart ofthose who enter.
This grand birthday, gives birth to an amazing new life,
for all those who accept your invitation .
What an extraordinary present.
I would not missthis birthday celebration oftheAncient One.
The truth is, your birthdayparty never stops.
It has been going onfor ages.
In every advent, your Birthday celebration
gets biggerand betterthan ever.
Youplay your music and we dance toyour tune.
No onecan rock the world likeyou.
What a ball we are infor.
Happy, Happy Birthday Baba.
I was born to come toyourparty.

India Visa Alert for
Tourist Visa Holders
n December 2009, India introduced a
new rule that prevents Tourist visa holders from re-visiting India within 2 months
after last leaving. That rule has been updated recently to include the following:
All Tourist visa holders, including 6
Month visa holders, and Non US citizens
holding a Tourist visa are impacted by the
new rule.
Some exceptionscan be made on a case by
casebasisas decided on by the local Consulates. Exception reasons include sick family
members in India.
More details are availablehere:
https://indiavisa.travisaoutsourcing.com/pdf!
Touris,-Visa_FAQ路pdf
To apply for a Permit to Reenter India
Within 2 Months, pleasevisitour website to
start the applicationprocess: https:/lindiavisa.
travisaoutsourcing.com/guidelines?id=16

I

Looking for the cheapest fare to India?
he New YorkTimes recently reviewed
airfarecomparisonWeb sitesand found
the best fareson Fly.com more often than the
other sites!What's their secret?Each search
on Fly.com checks fares from sites across
the Internet-from big names likeJetBlue,
Travelociry and Price1ine to the lesserknown airfare consolidators (who negotiate
private fares directly with the airlines).
With just a click, users go directly to the
airline or online agency to finish booking.
Remember: Fly.com is an airfarecomparison
site. You don't book with Fly.com. It will direct you to the best place to buy your ticket,
so you can still book directlywith the airline
or with an online travel agent.
The next time you're looking for airline
tickets, give Fly.com a try. It will search
through hundreds of fares and present the
best options (including all taxes and fees!)
in a simple easy-to-read format.
I tried it March 18th and found Korean
airlines had the cheapest fare from LA to
Mumbai, S1285.
I always used to fly Lufthansa, LA to
Frankfurt & then directly on to Mumbai,
but I have sincefound out they flyinto Pune,
a much better deal than Mumbai & the 6
hour drive to Meherabad.

T

T

he Avatar Meher Baba Bibliography,
which was compiled by Bal Natu, edited by J. Flagg Kris, and published in 1978,
is now included on the Online Library section of the Avatar Meher Baba Trust website. The bibliography lists works by and

~nnouncements
about Meher Baba in English and other
European languages, covering the years
1928 through early 1978. We are working
on updating the bibliography to include
works published since 1978 and works
published in non-European languages.
The Bibliography is listed among the 19
books presently availableon the Online Library at:
http://www.ambppct.org/meherbaba/online.
php

J

ose from Argentina tells us that they
now have a website up and running- all,
of course, in Spanish.
http://www.meherbaba.com.ar/

T

he Meher Baba Association in Great
Britain is very happy to announce
the launch of its newly designed website:
http://www.meherbaba.co.uk
The site has had a complete makeover
and contains lots of new exciting content.
Please explore the site. We hope that you
T:'or some incredibly beautiful photos of will like it. All feedback is welcomed.
Meher Spiritual Center taken by Greg
Rare Set ofDVDs:
Butler go to
Meher Baba Archives
http://primeJolio.comimehercenter/

r

G

od (our Baba) has certainly touched Irwin Luck, South Carolina
he Meher Baba Archives is offering
this child!
http://www.youtube.comlwatch?v=rmm-Oto Meher Baba Centers, Groups, and
those individuals who would like to get the
Rdxo8&ftatzlre=related
complete set of one hundred twenty-three
T:'or information on how to join the DVD'S of Meher Babas disciples from
crowd on the Baba-Talk listserv,go to around the world. These men and women
tell the stories of what Meher Baba personhttp://www.mymeherbaba.com/mailman/
ally said and did with them, over the years
listinfo/baba-talk
of their life with Meher Baba.
These videos were made in 1971 to 1973
Exciting New Web Site:
in India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, Europe and
"Meher Baba Manifesting"
endra Crossen of Myrtle Beach and the United States. It includes all the resiCheryl Johnson of Atwater, CA, have dent disciples who lived with Meher Baba
started a new web site at http://www.Me- everyday, as well as those who came from
herBabaManiJesting.com, bringing together other parts of India and other countries
all the important quotes about the breaking to stay with Him for years and those who
of Baba's silence and his Manifestation, would visit Baba and were guided continuplus visions, prophecies, opinions, and ously by His letters and correspondence.
controversies. A forum for discussion has These amazing videos are all first hand acbeen added, and people are invited to send counts of what He said and did with them .
submissions of articles or even short com- This is a legacy of the Avatar's life as seen
ments to kendra@meherbabamaniJesting.com. through the eyes of those that knew Him.
Come and read about Yad Rakh and This is the first time that most of this hisOmmm, Mahapralaya, Suddenists and tory will be known.
Each set consists of one hundred and
Gradualists, Space Aliens, and more! Do
you believe that Baba has already broken twenty-three DVD'S and contains the
his silence and we are gradually witness- complete collection of the 210 original
ing the results? Or are we still waiting for video tapes of Meher Baba's disciples that
three-quarters of the world to suddenly self- were video taped in many countries by Irdestruct, Baba'sonly miracle,the "something win and Edward Luck. This is a massive
that has never happened before," and an non-circulated collection of unedited inoccasionto wear our God-realization dresses terviews with the disciples of Meher Baba
(as Kitty, Delia, et al. thought they would be that is extensive.This set contains well over
doing when Baba said he would break his a hundred interviews of those who met and
silence in the Hollywood Bowl in 1933)? had long standing intimate contact with
Share your views on the forum or write an the Beloved Avatar throughout all or much
article. Listen to the Silence and keep the of their lives.
A Log Book comes with the set and is
Manifestation alive!
very important to help locate and inform

T

r

K

37

what each DVD contains, including the
speakers, topics, dates, time of interview,
place and other pertinent information for
viewing, editing and doing shows. It also
contains cross-indexes for finding the information. These tapes were made in the
early 1970's. Preparing all this has been an
enormous task and expense, which took
many years. The labeling job alone was
very time consuming for the DVD'S, and
the special boxes they are in.
This work also included making the
transfers to DVD, repair of obsolete equipment, acquiring new equipment to record
from the original tapes, working with other
specialized video labs, setting up our own
video lab for the bulk of the work, special
cleanings of the tapes, transfers, restoration
and duplication. Special training and skills
were often required . It was very labor intensive and expensive.
Nevertheless, it got done. This massive
set is the unedited raw material that will
be seen till the next advent after 700 years.
This is a priceless treasure that can never be
repeated again. This will be for all generations present and future to learn how the
Avatar loved and worked with His lovers as
told through their eyes.
Money can only be accepted as a donation to Meher Baba Archives Inc., which
is a not-for-profit tax exempt (50lc3) corporation. Originally, a donation of $25,000
entitled one to a set. But when multiple orders came in we were able to provide a set
for just a $10,000 donation.
Now only three sets are planned. This is
to raise money for making the new movie
which is now in progress. This movie contains many scenes of Meher Baba never
before seen.
To order please send a check, bank draft
or money order for $10,000 in US dollars.
Made out to: Meher Baba Archives. Please
include your name, address, phone number
and E-Mail address. All orders are paid in
advance and include shipping.
Mail to: Meher Baba Archives Inc. 1130
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U.S.A.
Phone: 843-267-8524
Website: wwwAvatarOFtheAge.com
E-Mail: OPFD22@Gmail.com
Donations are tax deductible. Meher
Baba Archives, Inc. mission is for the preservation, restoration, duplication and distribution of the great quantity of Meher
Baba Materials in the Archives.

C

ommemoration of 1962 East-West
Births and Marriages
Gathering in November 2012 at
aura Smith of Sheriar Books in MyrMeherabad between first and fourth
tle Beach and her husband Tommaso
November 2012.Babalovers alloverthe world Mini have just welcomed a second son into
are kindly requested to let us know of their their family. Darwin Vieri Mini was born
inclination to participate in this programme October 28, 2009, weighing 81bs.1 oz. He
at their earliestpossibleconvenience.This will is named after Darwin Shaw, and Vied is a
help us to make the necessary arrangements. traditional name in Florence, Italy, meanAlso, we would like to specially request those ingTruth. His 5-year-old brother is Ulisse
lovers who participated in 1962 East-West Francesco (born 10123104), whose names
Gathering to kindly share their experiences are Italian for Ulysses and Francesco (after
during the 2012 programme by personally St. Francis).
Laura and Tommaso first met in India
attending the 50th Anniversary.
Those lovers who for some reason are not in 1992 as they both walked up to the Saable to personallyattend, are kindly requested madhi. They met again at the Samadhi at
to send a briefwritten account of their experi- Amartithi 200o-their eternal date with
ences for publication in the 50th Anniversary God-and have been together ever since.
Commemoration Volume,which the library
committee is planning to bring forth. Since
this is going to be a big programme, its preparations have
started in right eamest and
cooperation from all of you
is solicited. The details of the
programme will be posted in
subsequent announcements.
The
venue will be
Meherabad, and the dates
will be between first and
fourth November 2012. The
programme will include
sharingof experiences by those
_
who attended 1962 East-West L Ga
al film
Tommasoand Laura with tbeir two sons,
thering, speci
on
Darunn Vieri and UliSJ~ Francesco.
East-West Gathering, play
and skit, musicalpresentation,and exhibition.
Please contact
hilllibrary@ambppct.org or Urmilla and
Gokaran Shrivastava, Librarians, Meherabad
Hill Library of AMBPPC Trust, Post
Meherabad, Ahmednagar, (MS) India 414
006, phone 0241-2548473.

W

endy Haynes Connor strikes a chord
with the familiar question we pose
ourselves when making a decision. Is the voice
I hear Baba'svoice,intuition, or the ego? Her
answer is inspired by a story about Baba Kitty told her in 1974. Immerse yourself in the
charm and wisdom ofWendy's latest column,
"ALeap ofFaith",on All (Baba)Things Considered
http://wwwosheriarbooks.orgIabtc/index.
php?f=wendyl2010102lleaJrof-jaith.html
While online,browsea complete archiveof
columns by Wendy, Steve Klein,Juniper Lesnik and Ann Conlon.
'T'my Zois of Melbourne Australia has
.L created a website:
http://mehermelbjimdo.com

L

Freeman and Christina:
Peas in a Pod
Christina Arasmo Beymer,
Santa Rosa by way of Florida
et's start with the basics: Freeman and
I were both born in 1967 and went to
Beloved Avatar Meher Baba's Samadhi in
1987 at different times. He was born in San
Francisco, California on June 14th. I was
born in Brooklyn, New York, on January
13th.
Freeman worked for Meher Baba's
Mandali, Bhau Kalchuri for 14 years
from the time he was 26 years old. During those years, he lived at the Meher
Baba Trust Compound in Ahmednagar, India. I got married in late 1985.
In 1993, Bhauji visited the Tampa Meher
Baba Group and I met Freeman for the
first time in the Tampa Airport. I felt immediately comfortable with him, like he
was my dear, old friend. He said to me that
he thought I was, "The coolest girl in the
world." He still does!
Until 1998, I would see Bhauji fairly
regularly. I found myself staring at Freeman a lot. I don't know why I did that.
Over the years, I would remember Freeman, in a friendly way, but since I barely
knew him, I thought it was interesting that
I'd be thinking of him at all. Freeman said
that he would think of me often over the
years, especiallysince the Meher Baba calendar would hang in his room at the Trust
Compound. [Christina is the designer who
each year creates the beautiful Baba calendars for us all.] Freeman stopped working for Bhauji in 2007 and moved back to
Santa Rosa, California. I got a divorceback
in early 2001.
In the summer of 2008, Freeman traveled with his mom, Sondra, and dad, Jack,
to Meherabad. For the first time in nearly
two decades, he was there as a pilgrim. I
also went to India, my first trip after 11
years, with my daughter, Mani, and my
mother, Laura. The day I arrived, I was
in the dining hall and I got a tap on the
shoulder from behind. I turned to see Freeman's shining smile. I was so, so happy!We
hugged and then I asked, "Are you here as
a pilgrim?" He replied that he was. He had
just arrived the day before. I was thrilled!
Freeman told me later that the day before he left for India, he looked at the back
of the calendar and made a mental note to
email me when he got back.
In late May of2008, I asked Meher Baba
about whether or not to take Mani to In-

L

dia (she was almost 9 years old), but money
was tight. I had just spent a lot on private
school. Just then my mother came to my
door and said, "If you go to India with me,
I'll pay for halfl"
Coincidentally, Freeman's stay was the
same length as mine, 21 days, but he arrived the day before. He often sat with
my family and me during meals. I did not
have anything more than friendly feelings
for him. Once, when we were talking on
the bus on the way back to Meherabad, I
thought, II could live with him for the rest
of my life.' I was not looking for anyone at
all, so that was a strange thought. At that
time, I really thought that I would remain
single for the rest of my life and I was all
right with that. During that conversation,
we exchanged contact information.
Then, one day, about a week before the
end of the pilgrimage, I woke up with the
hugest crush in the universe! "My God,
Baba, I came here for You!" I didn't know

-.

not encouraging on the romance front, just
friends he said, and the ensuing emails after that initial callwould have scared others
away, I think. However,I felt strongly that I
should givehim and us my best effort. I still
do. I honestly felt the love and longing for
Freeman was a gift from Meher Baba and
could be redirected back to Meher Baba,
and I could get the Hafiz award! Funny,
huh?
At first Freeman wanted none of this
'human romance stuff', but one month and
seven days after that first call, he was more
open to it. And eventually, through a combination of drugs", subliminal suggestion,
shock therapy, poetry, humor, and plane
trips, I wore him down and he married me
18 months later in the Clearwater, Florida
courthouse on 11 January, or 11110. The
date appealed to me as it is the theme of
the front cover of this year's Meher Baba
Calendar: Everyone is Baba, all else is zero.
Here's some of that poetry:
Xmas 2009
Merry Christmas Darling

On this eveofthe birth ofthe OneHu reigns
I sendyou thispoemofmy heart's refrain
Dearest soul, a drop in His Ocean
My heartisswimming in Love's potion
ForI'm tied toyou with invisiblestrings
And this hasopened my heart, it springs
Forth with agarden offriendship,
love, passion
A fragrantgiftfrom the
FatherofCompassion
I sendgushes and wavesoflovetoyou,
Freeman dear
And happiness, warmth, and goodcheer
I loveyou baby,f01-get thesillymind conflict
Just run offwith me and
consideryourselflicked.

Christina & Freeman
what to do with the feelings,but inwardly I
heard, "just go with it."
Mani and I are moving to Santa Rosa in
Nevertheless, I pestered Meher Baba to the next 2-4 months or sooner! I miss my
do something, to take the feelings away. I husband.
would act the same, friendly way around
Freeman, and kept my feelings to myself "Of course,I'm joking about the drugs.
They were really loud feelings, so I doubt
I did a very good job at hiding them .
When Freeman left, I was miserable.
During the trip back to the US, I had
formulated what I was going to say. It was
11 pm when I arrived home in Florida after 52 hours of travel. I immediately called
him. No bathroom, no nothing, I just went
directly to the phone. I said to him that
I felt a deep connection between us and
wondered if he felt it too. His answer was

n August of 1936, Kaikhushru Pleader,
one of Meher Baba's mandali, found a
mast on the streets ofBombay and brought
him back to Rahuri, where Baba had recently established His first ashram for the
mad and the God-intoxicated.
Mohammed, as this young man was
called among the community of Bombay
Muslims on whose shore the whim ofdivine
intoxication had washed him up, proved to
be, in the words of William Donkin, very
much a "problem mast, entangled in the
brambles of the spiritual path."
For as Baba subsequently explained, he
was at this time caught between the third
and fourth planes of consciousness in a
particularly difficult hairat or state of enchantment from which it is almost impossible to extricate oneself without the help
ofaMaster.
The sublimities and sensitivities of this
condition no doubt help to account for his
behaviour, which, again to use Donkin's
word, was "grotesque" even by mast standards. Thus, in Rahuri, Mohammed would
sit near the door to the ashram and pour
torrents of vituperation and abuse at anyone who approached him; at other times,
for hours together, he would scratch and
pick in the dust, looking for what he called
"deesh." (Mohammed's hunched and
stooped form today attests to this life-long
habit of his.) Yet "however contumacious
and difficult he may have been towards ev-

eryone else, he really seemed to adore Baba,
and long for His daily visits. Every day
when Baba came, it was as if a flame were
kindled in the depths of Mohammed's being, that for a moment lit up the dark and
tangled ways..." (Wayfarers p. 48).
In this fashion, Mohammed took his
place among that original group of masts
through whom Baba's 15 year phase of
sustained and concentrated mast work was
inaugurated. Today, more than 63 years
later, when all the other masts and saints
and spiritually advanced souls whom Baba
contacted have long since disappeared from
the scene, Mohammed is still among us,
living at Lower Meherabad as the ashram's
longest-term permanent resident and (presumably) carrying on with his work there.
All ofthis suggests a very unique connection with the Avatar and His work. Indeed,
as a wali of the fifth plane, Mohammed
carries the further distinction of being the
only current ashramite whom we know to
be spiritually advanced. He is, beyond this,
a man ofgreat destiny, for Baba said of him
that he would become a Perfect Master in
several more lifetimes. One would hardly
guess such rare distinction to see Mohammed today, who, with his bent form and
slow shuffle, looks like nothing quite so
much as a Maharashtrian version of"E.T."
Over the years the irritability and jalali
fieriness have subsided, and he has become
more obviously childlike, both in appearance and manner. Yet even a superficial observer could not help being struck by his

eyes, and the ancient feeling that saturates
his atmosphere and ambience continues,
as it has always done, to command a sense
of respect and even awe. Who is this remarkable man? Apart from what William
Donkin recorded in his magnificent book
fifty years ago, what do we know about
him? Where does he come from, and how
did he become as he is?
On a hot summer's morning not long
ago I put these questions to Eric Nadel,
a resident of Meherabad since the mid1970s who lives in the room next door to
"Mo," as he callshim, and who is intimately
involved in the mast's personal care. Fluent
in Marathi, which is Mohammed's mother
tongue, Erico is adept in the art of mastwheedling, through the practice of which
he has, over the years, gleaned much information about the great man's youth and
earlier life. What follows, then, are a few
pickings from Erico's biographical treasure-hoard.
Since "mastology"(or the study of masts)
is very much an infant science,these details
are particularly interesting, since they illuminate, from an advanced mast's own point
of view, how he came to inhabit the world
of higher awareness which is his true domain and field of action at the present time.
"Don't think," Erico began, "that Mo told
us about himself directly and all in one sitting. At the beginning it was very difficult
for him to recall anything from his earlier
life, because his mind is functioning in a
completely different fashion now than it
was when he had these experiences. Also,
the mind of any mast functions slowly: that
is one of its characteristics."
As Baba Himself explained, "Mind
stopped is God. Mind working, is man.
Mind slowed down, is mast. Mind working
fast, is mad.
In certain respects, Mo-like other
masts-is quite childlike, and the process
of inducing him to recall and reminisce requires patience, a certain kind ofcharm, and
a talent in attuning oneself to the rhythm
of his consciousness. "I would ask him a
question," Erico said, "and have one of the
Marathi-speaking servants repeat the question, gently nagging him; and then I would
ask him again. He would answer us- in
Marathi, of course--saying, 'I'm recollect-

ing, I'm recalling.' After this had gone on
for a while, he would say, 'Shall I tell you?
Shall I tell you?' And we would say, 'Yes,
please tell us!' This would repeat several
times: 'Shall I tell you?''Yes,tell us!'Finally
he would say, 'I'm telling you!'and he would
begin to come out with his answer. Once
he had gotten going, he would not only
answer our questions but sometimes would
volunteer his own reminiscences.
"For example, he might say, 'Shall I tell
you? Shall I tell you? In my village the
houses are made of leaves and grass.' By
encouraging him in this way to recall his
early childhood and describe it to us, we
learned that he had been the youngest in
an extended family of14 children. Thus he
was called 'Nana Bhau,' which means 'little
brother.' Knowing this became very useful
to us. It made it easy for us to encourage
him to eat or drink water or sit outside or
exercise. We would just say to him, 'Nana
Bhau, come and have your milk.' He gets
immense pleasure from this." In fact, Mohammed's real name-the name given to
him by his parents-was Tukaram Lakshman Chavan. Thus, despite the sobriquet
'Mohammed' given to him later, he was by
birth a Hindu and not a Muslim at all. He
grew up in Ratnagiri, a small coastal town
in southern Maharashtra not far from the
Goan border. His father was a potter, and
he still remembers some of the rudiments
of pot-making taught to him as a boy.
"After the wheels of memory had been
greased a bit by severalsessions of recollection," Erico went on, "I asked him how he
became a mast. The actual word that I used

was 'deva' (or 'god'): 'How did you become
a deva?' For the third plane (from which
station Mohammed began his spiritual
journey in this lifetime) is the abode of devas, and he used to see them there. When I
asked him this, Mo snapped his fingers, as
if to imply that it happened very quickly:
'Just like that!' I asked where he was at the
time. He told us that he was at home in
his house. His wife and two children were
sleeping. I asked him what was the time of
day. He answered, 'Early in the morning.'
Having just woken from sleep, he stood up
to tie on the red piece of cloth he used as
underwear. When he
finished tying on his
underwear, he told us,
he became a deva.
"What did you do
then?' I asked him. Mo
replied with animation,
'I put up my arms like
this!' and he raised both
arms above his head.
"'How long did you
do that for?'
"About ten days, two
weeks.'
"'And then what did
you do?'
'''I put on my shoes
and I went to Bombay.'
"Why did you go to
Bombay?'I asked him.
"And here, Mo told
me-these are the
words in MarathiPushkal dalinder bawaji

ahay tita, which means, roughly, 'There are
many unkempt respectable old men there.'
The literal sense of these words was easily enough understood, but it seemed that
there was something more to be grasped
than this. What made this answer especiallyconfusing was that Mo uses the word
'bawaji' to refer to old Parsi gentlemen.
Why would the presence of old, unkempt,
respectable Parsi gentlemen be something
that would attract him to Bombay? Puzzling this over for a few days, suddenly I
realized what Mo was saying. He was not
talking about unkempt Parsis or unkempt
old men in Bombay. What he meant was
that there were plenty of masts there. And
when I asked him questions to this effect
later, he gave answers that confirmed this
interpretation."
So Mohammed left his home and family and took up residence in Bombay. During this period, as William Donkin recorded, Mohammed was much pursued by
number bettors who gambled on the "dayto-day fluctuations of cotton prices" and
who, for this purpose, would pester men
perceived as spiritually advanced for profitable hints and tips. At the time Pleader
found him, Mohammed was living in the
streets of the city, sleeping under a small
stall at night, and providing tips to these
cotton speculators in exchange for meals.
"It seems that one of his problems when
he became a mast," said Erico, "is that he
no longer knew exactly how to get food to
eat." In fact, Pleader gave Mohammed the

Photo ÂŠ MSI Collection

Erica(right) and "Ma" (left)

first good meal that he had had for years.
"Mo told us that, when he met Baba in
Rahuri for the first time, he didn't recognize Him, but he nonetheless wanted to
embrace Baba, and Baba wanted to embrace him. They did embrace, Mo says,
and they both were very, very happy. And
after some days, Mo recognized who Baba
was: 'Dharma cha Dada,' that is, 'the Elder
Brother of the ancient faith of mankind.'"
All these recollections derive from the
earlieryearsofMohammed's life,in the '20s
and '30s. But occasionallyMohammed has
alluded to experiencesfrom a previous lifetime--presumably the most recent incarnation before this current one--in which
foundations for his present career as a mast
appear to have been laid. His name in that
lifetime was Vithoba, and as the priest in
a Hindu temple, he spent much time worshipping a statue of the temple's presiding
deity. Gradually the intensity of his devotion increased, until at length he wandered
off into the jungle and spent the remainder
of his life there, inwardly absorbed. It was
at this time, one presumes, that he became
a mast and entered into the spiritual path.
"So now today," says Erico, "we have a
delightful 'Nana Bhau' (Little Brother) sitting on his chair on the back veranda of a
1948 bungalow at Lower Meherabad. He
doesn't appear to be doing much, but when
I ask him casually, 'What are you doing?'
sometimes he'll reply, 'Danda chaloo hay,'

The grave is still unoccupied, serving
as a catchment pit for "dead balls" that
fly over the hedge in the course of lateafternoon volleyball games at the Pilgrim
Centre, while Mohammed himself can still
be found "practicing his profession" on the
veranda of Mandali Hall.
As the years pass and the life of the Avatar of the Age gradually passes out of firsthand memory into the realm of history and
written record, Mohammed the mast is one
of the last living reminders of one of the
most significant phases and aspects of Beloved Babas work. What Baba was really
doing with the masts, no one can tell. Even
if someone could tell, that vast majority of
us locked in the plane of gross consciousness could never understand. Whatever
that game may have been, Mohammed the
mast appears to have been one of Baba's
first-string players. Through the ages to
come, his name and memory will be cherished as one of the beloved children of the
Eternal Beloved of all mankind.
Meberana Messenger, Issue 1999, pp. 1-3,
5, ÂŠ 1999 Meherana, Inc.

which means, 'I am practicing my profes-

.

S10n.

'"

This narration completed, Erico and I
paid a visit to the grand old man himself,
who was seated in his chair in the back
veranda near the door to Mandali Hall.
After the appropriate pourparlers, Erico
asked him, in Marathi, of course, "Do
you hear Dada's voice?" Mohammed answered in the affirmative.
"What does Dada's voice sound
like?"In reply, Mohammed made a
sound something like "hu" or "hun"
as one would say if one were to nasalize "Hoo," the Islamic name for
God. As a wali of the fifth plane,
of course, Mohammed has attained
to a station where he can actually
hear the Word of God, the Primal
Sound, the Nada Brahmin that upholds and sustains creation.
"Does he hear Dada's voice all the
time? I hear it in the morning, Mohammed replied. "Do you hear it at
night also?" "No."
And on this note our conversation came to a close.
Mohammed the mast is now
in the neighbourhood of 87 or 88
years old. During Amartithi some
eight or nine years ago he became
so ill that a grave was dug for him
in the men's cemetery in Lower
Meherabad.

Photo by Win Coates

2iow ~aba ;:Revealed 2iimself to ~e
2ianna Schafer, California

D

oes anyone else sometimes get the
feeling that they are on an adventure
with Meher Baba? I certainly have been
feeling this way more and more each day.
Baba is steering the ship and every place
we go is a surprise and an experience that
changes everything. I have started to feel
excited for no reason at all. I know that
any place that Baba takes me is exactly
where I need to be and with that trust I
overflow with the enthusiasm of a child.
This feeling has been building ever since
I first felt the orbit of Baba's love and has
become recently more intense. So intense
that I now think that I have to tell you all
a story.
I had seen Baba's portraits quite often,
but I had never been moved by any

images until 2001 when I was on a drive
with my own beloved. He keeps a small
photograph ofBaba in His car that I had
seen on many occasions. It is a close up of
an exuberant Baba beaming at the camera
while He is piled high with garlands
of flowers. I do not know why it was on
that day with that picture, but it was a
perfect moment. The picture pulsated
and I was enveloped with His love. My
heart broke open and was spilling out
in soft waves. Something happened that
day that changed everything, and it didn't
take us long to book a trip to India to go
to Baba's Samadhi. It was September 14,
2001 when we arrived in Meherabad. We
went straight to His Samadhi and sat and
cried and swooned with His love. After

wandering the grounds we returned to the
Samadhi for a second time around sunset.
We were blessed with a beautiful recital
of the Parvardigar Prayer spoken by an
unknown man with a beautiful booming
voice. Everywhere we went on the rest of
our journey we were carried by His love.
We were always aware of His navigation.
Upon our return things immediately
started to be dismantled. We had anticipated this but were greatly unprepared for
it. Both of our lives took turns that had
never seemed likely. Some turns were
blissful but most were intense, burning
and even painful. It seemed like a cruel
joke. We were tested beyond what we
thought we could endure, both together
and separately. We knew that it was Baba's

43

hand unraveling us. It was evident that the
visit to His Samadhi had sped things up,
an acceleration that wasn't easy to endure.
In the midst ofall the chaos in the years to
follow, it often felt like Baba stood back or
even awayfrom us, but never gone. Always
there, watching and smiling at our "suffering" - His children being born anew.
Almost six years after we returned from
Baba's Samadhi, I painted a picture. First
I have to explain that I am not what you
would call a painter. I am a dabbler. I enjoy
painting when I am moved to, but I can
go years without even thinking about it.
I was in one of these artistic moods back
in 2007, so I pulled out paint and canvas.
The result is the painting shown here, and
I haven't painted a thing since. On this
occasion I didn't even know what I was
trying to paint. I just had a feeling and I
saw the colors in my periphery like shadows that move when you look directly at
them. I spent two days putting paint on
canvas and scraping it off. Always feeling
the shadows slip out of sight. I even got
frustrated a couple of times because nothing seemed to be coming together and I
wanted to give up. That is when I started
to see the faces. I had never intended to
paint faces in the sky, but there they were.
I could go in no other direction. I accentuated and enhanced them and watched
them emerge. In the end I was left with a
picture that I didn't fully appreciate or understand, and after it dried it ended up in
the closet with a couple of other old paintings. That is where it has sat until a couple
of months ago.
My beloved was visiting one afternoon
when I spontaneously thought of the
painting and I took it out to show him.
He looked at it and said "Oh, you painted Baba". Without even glancing at the
painting I told him that I had not painted
Baba and that I think I would have known
if I had painted Baba! When I finally
looked over at the canvas, there He was
before my eyes, complete with His beautiful mustache and Mehera by His side.
I was absolutely speechless. I know that
I never intentionally painted a mustache
and I know I had not intentionally painted
Baba. If someone had asked me to paint a
picture ofBaba in Samadhi, floating in the
sky with Mehera, never in a million years
could I have produced this so perfectly. I
know myself as an artist, and I am telling
you all that this could not have happened
if! had intentionally set out to paint such
a picture. I didn't even know that this is

44

what I painted when I first put it in my
closet.
I hung it on the wall immediately after realizing who it was in the painting
and have been staring at it ever since. It
has continued to reveal itself to me and
it has taken on new depth and intensity.
Including a winged heart in flight that
emerges the longer you look. The clouds
have parted and that which is always there
is seen. I am reminded of the sun behind
grey clouds on a chilly afternoon, and how
easy it is to forget the ever present, atomic
force always shining upon us. In such a
quiet, yet unmistakable way, Baba shows
me His face as it is now.Deep in Samadhi.
I can hear Him saying to me "I am always
here. ALWAYS HERE. And I love you."
I shall look at this painting for the rest of
my life and know that I am loved and am
never alone.
Now, I didn't think that this story had a
second halfuntil a few weeks after the picture came out of the closet. However, for
me to tell the rest of the story I have to tell
you something that I never had any intention of telling anyone. In 2007, the second
quarter issue, The Love Street Lamp Post
printed an article thanking a person you
called "Anonymous" for sending you S100
dollar bills for a period of a few months.
I am the person you wrote about. I don't
really know why I started sending you the
money, I just knew that sending it to Baba
was the best thing that I could have done
with it. I also knew that for it to be genuine
it had to be a secret,with no desire for recognition. After every shift I worked I quietly put money aside and when it reached
$100 I would send it without delay, and I
burned with this. I sent the money until
the pull to continue started to wane in the
same way it had begun. It was then that I
received the issue of The Love Street Lamp
Post and I saw the image of the $100 bill
and the article below it. My heart started
to race and I immediately started crying. I
knew it was about what I had done and I
was filled with gratitude.
Recently I was with my beloved admiring the painting and Mehera's beautiful
face. I pulled out a book with some of her
photos in it to compare the painting with.
When I returned the book to the shelf I
was inexplicably moved to find the article. I couldn't imagine why after so long
I was being prodded to share that which
I had kept secret and had lost any desire
to share. The buzz in my ear wouldn't
go away so I took the chance and shared

it with the one person I trust more than
anyone else. I told him the story and he
just nodded through it, unsurprised. He
took the issue from my hands and turned
it over. He then laughed and handed it
back to me and said "Look at the date",
and then he pointed to the painting. The
issue date is the same date as the painting.
I was painting the picture when the article
came out. I would have never put the two
events together back then, but Baba wants
the two to be seen side by side.
Baba gave me a gift that had to ripen
first. The painting, the article, and the
deep experience of the unraveling of my
life all had to happen simultaneously. Baba
says that there is no such thing as coincidence and now there is no doubt for me
that this is true. I know that He loves me
and that I am His child, and like a child I
can go forward in my life with trust and
enthusiasm, as I believewe all can. Baba is
everywhere all the time. He is alwaysradiating upon us His brilliance and love. All
I have to do is look at this painting and I
know that although it may have been my
hand that held the paint brush, it was
Baba who made each brush stroke. I really
can't wait to see what He creates next. I
am forever at His feet.
Jai Baba!

Painting by Katie Rose

Meher Baba in Bhandardara, Maharashtra, in 1933. Courtesy of the Elizabeth Chapin Patterson Photo Archives (ECPPA).
The photo was taken by Elizabeth Patterson, who wrote in a typed note : "Bbandardara, mentioned in this Diary, was a place on the way to Kashmir where
we stayed with Baba. The picture that I took ofBaba that we like so much with his hairflowing. ill white sadra, was taken by me all a walk mentioned and Lake
Arthur is in the backgroulld. I believe it was actually taken April 9. 1933. as that is the date ill my Diary.'

'lourists 310ck to 'Jesus's 'lomb' in 2<ashmir
Sam JWiller, SrillafJar
A reader sent me this interesting articlefrom
theBBG. When my daughter and I weretraveling in India in 1987 (I won the Fly-to-India Sweepstakes given by ourBaba Centerin
LA) OUl" guide was showing us around Srinigar-a gorgeous place-and he pointed out,
in passing, a wooden shack, saying in a casual
tone, "thatisuiberejesus isburied."First I had
everheardofit! But thenI reada book that we
sellin the Love StreetBookstore - Journeyinto
Kashmir & Tibet - fascinating! It is written
by a proftssor who had heard all the legends,
and set out toprove them wrong. The evidence
hefound was so overwhelming, he endedup a
convert and wrote this book about it. He goes
intogreatdetailaboutJesus' lifebefore and ajter the crucifixion and resurrection.

J\ belief that Jesus survived the crucifix.l"\.ion and spent his remaining years in
Kashmir has led to a run-down shrine in
Srinagar making it firmly onto the mustvisit-in India tourist trail.
In the backstreets of downtown Srinagar

is an old building known as the Rozabal
shrine. It's in a part of the city where the
Indian security forces are on regular patrol,
or peering out from behind check-posts
made of sandbags.There are still occasional
clashes with militants or stone-throwing
children, but the security situation has improved in recent times and the tourists are
returning. When I first searched for Rozabal two years ago, the taxi circled around
a minor Muslim tomb in a city of many
mosques and mausoleums, the driver asking directions severaltimes before we found
it. The shrine, on a street corner, is a modest
stone building with a traditional Kashmiri
multi-tiered sloping rooÂŁ A watchman led
me in and encouraged me to inspect the
smaller wooden chamber within, with its
trellis-like, perforated screen. Through the
gaps I could see a gravestone coveredwith a
green cloth. When I returned to the shrine
recently though, it was shut-its gate padlocked because it had attracted too many
visitors. The reason? Well, according to an

eclectic combination of New Age Christians, unorthodox Muslims and fans of
the Da Vinci Code, the grave contains the
mortal remains of a candidate for the most
important visitor of all time to India.

'Crazy Professor'

O

fficially, the tomb is the burial site
of Youza Asaph, a medieval Muslim
preacher-but a growing number of people
believe that it is in fact the tomb of Jesus
of Nazareth. They believe that Jesus survived the crucifixion almost 2,000 Easters
ago, and went to live out his days in Kashmir. "What else could they do? They had
to close it," Riaz told me. His family home
almost overlooks the shrine, and he is witheringly dismissive of the notion that Jesus
was buried there. "It's a story spread by local shopkeepers, just because some crazy
professor said it was Jesus's tomb. They
thought it would be good for business.
Tourists would come, after all these years of
violence." And then it got into the Lonely

45

Planet, [a travel guide] and too many people started coming. "And one foreigner ..."
he gave me an apologetic look, "broke off a
bit from the tomb to take home with him .
So that's why it's closed now." On cue, a
couple ofunwashed and exhausted Australians appeared, carrying the latest edition
of the Lonely Planet guide to India, which,
sure enough, carried the tale of Jesus's
tomb, with some caveats about crackpots
and blasphemy. They asked me to take a
photo of them outside the shrine-but were
not desperately disappointed that it was
closed. The tomb ofJesus was just another
place to tick off on their tourist-in-India
must-visit list.

A Famous Meeting

T

he ruins of a Buddhist monastery in
a spectacular location halfway up a
mountainside north of Srinagar are not, yet,
mentioned in the Lonely Planet. It's a spot
that I had previouslybeen unable to visit,because as a senior police officer told me, it was
"infested with terrorists". But the watchman
now seemed prepared for the arrival of mass
tourism, with his 50 words of English, and
his hidden stock ofancient terracotta tiles for
sale. He informed me that Jesus was among
the religious leaders who attended a famous
Buddhist meeting here in AD 80, and even
pointed to the place where he sat.The stories
ofJesus in India are not just aimed at gullible
tourists-they date back to the 19th Century.
They were part of attempts to explain the
striking similarities between Christianity
and Buddhism, a matter of great concern
to 19th Century scholars-and also a desire

among some Christians to root
the story ofJesus in Indian soil.

Missing Years

T

here is talk of the missing
years of Jesus, unmentioned in the gospels, [unless
you read Elaine Pagel'sGnostic
Gospels] when he was between
the ages of 12 and 30. Some I~~"'"
say he was in India, picking
up Buddhist ideas. These aren't
notions that have entirely died
out. The US-based Christian
sect, known as the Church
Universal and Triumphant, is the bestknown modem supporter of the belief that
Jesus lived in Kashmir, though they don't
believehe died there. And in Islam, in which
Jesus is the penultimate prophet, there is
also a minority tradition adopted by the
controversial Ahmeddiya sect, that Rozabal
does contain the grave of'jesus. Professional
historians tend to laugh out loud when you
mention the notion that Jesus might have
lived in Kashmir-but his tomb is now firmly
on the tourist trail-and a growing number of
credulous visitors believe that he was buried
in the Rozabal shrine.
And for those who scoff, remember that
others have argued, just as implausibly, that
Jesus came to Britain. A theory that was
much in vogue when the poet William
Blake famously asked: "And did those feet
in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb ofGod
on England's pleasant pastures seen?"

~
/

I

The way to the Paneboati (ave.

Story from BBC NEWS: bttpi/rneu禄.
bbc. co. uk/go/prljr/-/2/hilprogra11lmes/jrom_
01ll路_owlI_correspqfllldentl8587838.stm
And what did Meher Baba have to say
about this? Here is the direct quote from
Lord Meher Vol 3 page 752:
"That is where Jesus' body is buried"...
He said to His women disciples, when they
were in Kashmir in 1944.
During their stay, Baba once took the
women to the village of Harvan and took
them up the hills and showed them the
spot where he had sat in seclusion in 1929.
Pointing to a specific area in the mountainous area, he remarked to them, "That is
where jesus'body is buried.
But before that, in August 1925 [Lord
Meher Vol 8, page 2974] He had told His
men mandali "There is one secret about
Jesus which the Christians do not know.
When Jesus was crucified, he did not die.
He entered the state ofNirvikalp Samadhi
(the T-am-God state without bodily consciousness). On the third day, he again became conscious ofhis body, and he traveled
secretly in disguise eastward (with some
apostles) to India. This was called Jesus' resurrection. After reaching India, he traveled
farther east to Rangoon, in Burma, where
he remained for some time. He then went
north to Kashmir, where he settled. When
his work was finished on earth, he dropped
his body and entered Nirvikalp Samadhi
permanently. Saints in India have verified
these facts aboutJesus'travels. Mankind will
soon become aware of the true life ofJesus."
Whenever Meher Baba returned to Srinagar, for his own reasons, he went to the
Harvan mountain village near the area
where Jesus's body was buried in a cave
nearly twenty centuries ago. Baba did not
actually show the cave to his men and
women mandali, because after viewing
the terrain one observes that the cave was
probably covered over by avalanches and

being crucified, and he is continuously taking birth."
The grave of Meher Baba's
first secretary, Chanji (Framroz Dadachanji), is not far
from the area where Baba said
Jesus is buried. Chanji used to
say, "When I die, I want to die
in Kashmir,it's so lovelythere."
When Baba was on his way to
Harvan Village from Srinagar in 1929, he had remarked
to Chanji, "Your tomb will be
here." And sure enough, on
August 25, 1944, Chanji died
from typhoid while traveling
in Kashmir with Baba; he fell
ill after eating potatoes despite Baba's order to him not
to. Bhau Kalchuri recounts
in Lord Meher that Chanji
died with Baba's name on his
lips. "Baba himself attended
Chanji's funeral in the Parsi
cemetery and strewed flowers
~oIWo~~\rJLiIIIi"'I!!I!!L:ii.i.[it,.;....:.=;;;,;....,;;:;;;j' over his last remains. Thereafthe natural growth of the mountain terrain.
ter, a headstone was raised and
This may be a controversial point of con- Chanji was finally given a rest after twenty
tention among Christian historians; none- hectic yearsin India, and on trips abroad, as
theless, it is legendary in India and Tibet. Baba's personal secretary. During journeys,
It is also a legend in Kashmir that the He- even in crowded third class train compartbrew Prophet Moses is buried in another ments, Chanji would type letters and his
area of the Kashmir mountains named diary notes, sometimes even at night" (volume 8: 2969). It is thanks to
Mount Nebo.
Chanji's Diary that posterity
Contributed by Kendra Crossen has received a record of Bao the Muslims believe, and Baba con- ba's early travels, activities,
firmed, that Jesus did not die on the and teachings. In addition,
Cross but traveled to India and died there because of Chanji, the large
(in Kashmir). If this were proved true, extended family of Dadawould that render the Christian religion chanjis had the good fortune
invalid? Only if you believe in a funda- to be very close to Baba.
Bhau also notes: "Baba's
mentalist manner that Jesus had to die on
the Cross in order to save humanity. Baba journey to Kashmir seemed
acknowledged that Christ indeed suffered to have a decisive effect on
on the Cross for humanity, but He revealed the war" (Lord Meher 8:
the true meaning of the Crucifixion (in 2968). Chanji's death came
the Discourses): "The Man-God knows two days after the liberation
himself to be one with all the other souls of Paris by the Allied forces.
Following the partition of
in bondage. Although he knows himself
to be identical with God and is thus eter- India in 1947, Kashmir benally free, he also knows himself to be one came a hotbed of territorial
with the other souls in bondage and is thus dispute. The conflict is sumvicariously bound. Though he constantly marized thus in Wikipedia
experiences the eternal bliss of God-re- (as of 3/29/10; the Internet
alization, he also vicariously experiences encyclopedia is subject to
suffering owing to the bondage of other being altered by future edsouls,whom he knows to be his own forms. its): "India claims the enThis is the meaning of Christ's crucifixion. tire former princely state of
The Man-God is, as it were, continuously Jammu and Kashmir and

presently administers approximately 43%
of the region including most of Jammu,
Kashmir Valley, Ladakh and the Siachen
Glacier. India's claim is contested by Pakistan, which controls approximately 37% of
Kashmir, mainly Azad Kashmir and the
northern areas of Gilgit and Baltistan. In
addition, China controls 20% of Kashmir.
... India's officialposition is that Kashmir
is an integral part of India. Pakistan's officialposition is that Kashmir is a disputed
territory whose final status must be determined by the people of Kashmir. China's
official position is that Aksai Chin is a part
of Tibet, which is a part of China. Certain
Kashmiri independence groups believe
that Kashmir should be independent of
both India and Pakistan."
The alleged burial places of Jesus (and
Chanji) are in the Indian-administered
region. We may speculate that the importance of Kashmir will take on a whole new
significance once the world realizes that
the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba, conducted part of his Universal Work there.
See Late Breaking News on p. 12

s

47

rpoetry

7he Creation 2iabit

Vtteher 71aba's

See 2iow )30U Vttake

...Avataric School

)3our ..covers ~eep!

I didn't know I was in His school. It was not like
the otherschools.
Here I was taught about theplanes oflight,
the masteryofthought andfeelings,
about the nothing and the everything.
and most ofall aboutyou and me.
I always knew there was a school like this but I
didn't know where.
The schoolmaster was no ordinary man.
He knew each ofus, and loved us.
He was kindly and knew exactlywhat he was
doing.
I couldtrust this Master ofletterswith my life. I
was safe here.
My mind became very sharpsoI didn't have to
study hard.
The schoolmaster awakened my intuition.
I couldanticipate what was to be and remember
what was.
First grade was the best.
He taught /IS how to readsentences in a book.
Then to read what was between the words.
He showedthat silence can speak. How to read
what was unspoken.
We would go onfield trips.
In moreadvanced courses they couldseewith the
mind.
That was a lot offUn. Touring the world this
way.
Visiting thepast orfuture couldbe surprising.
Things were often different than what was in
the books.
In the last gradesyou can see the source ofall
things.
Be they ofthis world, or beyond. Everything is
known.
Thefinal test is whetheryou can walk in
everyoneelse's shoes.
Once the schoolmaster is satisfiedthat you know
all he taught,
then you graduate and become a schoolmaster
yourself
whetheryou teach others or not. What a great
schoolyou have.
lin glad you let me come. There is nonelike it.
YourAvataric school.

We waited in the darkness before sunrisewith a

Irwin Luck
February 23, 2010
Myrtle Beach, SC

plan,
A plan that bordered on the realms ofinsanity
As ifit werepossible to dashinto the aperture of
daybreak
And stealthe living daylight ofthe sun!
Those who try get burnt.
We conspired to lie in wait all night
Toensnare the luminousmirrorofthe moonand
make it ours.
With such an abundance oflight in the heavens
We shouted, why shouldwe not take our share?
Why shouldwe heedthepoets'words,
That the mirror's shards ofglasscancutyour
heart
And make it bleed!
Then we werein the crowdthatformed to share
Thegrowing brilliance ofcomets in the sky.
Longing heartsreached out to capturefalling
stardust
Just a handful even But even these heavenlybodies weresnatched
away,
Compelled by what imperative, by what cosmic
law
Tobe takenfrom oursight?
Seehowyou makeyour lovers weep!
Hearts arecut open by such intransigence!
I've seen how mothsburn in the candle'sflame
But mothsdon'tbleedlike this
Or shedsuch tears.
Sarah McNeill
England

Eooe, the :lire
Love, thatfire which ignitesand tempers all
things
If it is not the bestofliving, what is?
And God, thatfire within us,
Melting andfUsing /IS with time itself.
Love isan awesome reality
The truest ofthings even unseen
And while itsfire givesform,
Love is birth, the seedwithin
That knows itspurpose.
Ruth Brandon,
Missouri

Creation is a woman everybody knows Gives Goda lot oftrouble, you'dwonder why He
chose
To have heraround, to have heraround.
Must be cos He likesher, thinks she's mightyfine;
Must be cos He needs herfor the oldproduction
lineTokeep thingsgoin'and the business
sound
Maybe cos sheis a woman - He never knows
how sheblows,
Keeps Godeverguessing and always on His toes;
Maybe that is what He hasfound.
Maybe cos sheis a woman and knowsjust how
topleaseThat's when she's notfussin' orgone into deepfreeze,
Or to Everest's peak, or underground.
But sure Godloves creation Lookat all His children thereareAll us men and women and the most distant star:
And he likes baoin' us all around.

Call1ou~ane
I thought I wantedsomanythings
but really theywereall masksfor You.
Lovefor anyone oranything
ismerely a disguise, a camoziflage
for loveofYou.
Indeed, what isthisentire world, but make-believe?
Andyouhidesowell
No wondersomanyhavelostsightofYou.
You don't gofor ratings.
OnlyYou could beso indifferent topopularity.
You arenotsatisfied until we arehappy
tohaveourhappiness stripped awoy.
Until we can register thefaceofLove
in thedust ofloss. Until we know the words
earth andheartarethesame lettersfalling
differently.
os. my Beloved.
Helpmesee through thisveil ofYourpretending.
Peel away thelayers.
I want You to him thiscostume ofmyselfinside out.
I want You to tease outthethreads ofdivinity
which You once sewedintothe veryseams ofme
and makethemspellYour name
soI am nothingbut Love.

ÂŠ RosieJackson
England

'{he Bhazal and the Qawwal explained
Bythe publishers ofThe Hindu
usrat Fateh Ali Khan attempted to
globalise the Sufi mystic experience
by collaborating with musicians from other
countries. His death at the age of 49 [1997]
isa matter of sadness, a great tragedy. He was
a true artist, inheritor and practitioner of a
vanishing musicalheritage: the qawwali.This
musical form of the Sufi mystictradition has
been sung for many centuries and Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan came from a family or dynastyof qawwals.
In the Indian (this includes the Pakistani
and the Bangladeshi) schools of Sufi mysticismwhich permit countenance and encourage the sama or seance, the qawwali is used
for the design, creation and cultivation of
techniques that induce ecstasy (haal or wajd)
in the listener. Qgwwali is thus an essential
ingredient of worship as practised by Sufis,
their disciples and the devotees who flock to
the shrinesof Sufi saints.
Sufis, like the aiyanars and other bhaktas,
love God with an all-consuming passion
which leaves no room in the heart for either
the world or worldly pursuits. Qgwwals using words from poetry embellished by notes
and percussion from the classical and semiclassical tradition of Indian music serve the
needs of Sufi dargahs or tombs by creating
the atmosphere for a seance. They verbalise
and point with music the yeaming and sufferingof the loverseparatedfrom the beloved.
Their call to love is given through verses
selected for poignancefromlyrics. The ghazal
in Urdu or Persian and the geet in Hindi
verses becomecanvasses to absorband radiate
colour from the note patterns of the modes
chosento render the songs.
These modes (ragas and raginis) transform
the verses into mantrasor chants,incantations
or formulae. Magic arises from the fusion to
make the multi-layered meaningof the words
manifestitse1ÂŁ The drumming (tabla) targets
the heart by first mergingwith and then taking over and regulatingthe heartbeat. Variations in speed, decibels and the quanturn of
sound produced-from the almost-inaudible
to the eardrum-splitting crescendo----obliterate the outside world with its insistence on
objective realityand focuses the sensitivity of
the listenerinwardsandjust into the regionof
the heart.The one feeling that survives is the
capacityto suffer.
Newcomersand casualvisitors to qawwalis
are sensitizedas ifby osmosis from the over-

N

flow of immense feeling exuded by others in
the audience. The novices react to the level
and extentof emotion their hearts are capable
of experiencing. Tears well up to pulsate on
the tip of the eyelash or flowincessantly from
the eyes; lumps rise to choke the throat and
breathing is in intervals and takes the form
of short, sharp gasps. It is,increasingly, a rare
qawwal who can deliver this formula every
time he performsand Nusrat Fateh Ali never
failed.
As the centreof the qawwali art form is the
lyricor the ghazal,perhaps it would be illustrating to go into its origin and development.
Since the arrival of the Turkic and Mghan
tribesmen in India in about A.D. 1000, a
most important place, a power base or shakti
sthalahasbeen occupied in Indian poetry and
music by the lyric form called ghazal. TIlls
word, of Arabicorigin,is now common heritage to all Indian languages and many Indian
poets use it as the preferred form.
In Arabic, ghazal means a lovertalking to
his beloved amorously. The ghazalwas developed further and to its maximumpotentialin
Iran and in India where Persianwas the court
language of the Turcomans, Afghans and the
Mughalswho ruled in the North and the Bahamanis and their sucessors in the South. Of
the Persian poets, Hafiz of Shiraz enjoys the
highest reputation. The Indian poets held in
esteem for Persian verse are Amir Khusrau
(13th century) and Mirza Bedil (18th century). Khusrau also wrote in Hindi and was
devotedto the great SufiNizamuddin Auliya.
Khusrau's Persian and Hindi verse is sung at
Sufi shrines even today, some seven centuries
later. On the anniversary of the saint'sdeath,
the Urs festivities start with qawwals singing
a Khusrauverse.
The ghazal and the geet both found the
qawwali their naturalhabitat as theyrepresent
a lovertalking to the beloved amorously. The
status oflove was very high in the Athens of
Socrates and Plato and the Dillee of Hazrat
Nizamuddin and Arnir Khusrau.Their belief
was that God was the onlytrue male and that
all of creationwas female. Just as the female
yeams for the male so also does the finite
soul yeam for the Infinite. Life on Earth is
separation and exile. Death is reunion with
the Beloved. The anniversary of the death of
a saint is celebrated aswould be a wedding. It
is called'Drs' which means "Nuptial Union".
The Urs ofHazrat Nizamuddin commences
with the qawwals singing Khusrau's verse

written at the death of the saint. It reads:
"Goaree soawaiy seij purra, mukha purra
daareiy kaiys; Chull Khusraughurr appuney,
reiyn bhuyee chahoun deys,' ("The fair one
is asleep on the bed and her hair covers her
face; 0 Khusrau! Wend your way home, for
the world has becomedark.")
When this verse is sung again and again
and portions of it are "lifted"into the higher
octaves, the heartsof the listeners are plunged
into grief Khusraus sorrow at the death of
his beloved Master envelops allpresent.Tears
wellup in manyeyes. Someget up and gyrate
in the tight circle of their seatwalledin by the
huge crowd. A great catharsis occurs and all
pilgrimsreturn lighter and fulfilled.
The Sufi shrineswere active all overIndia,
from Srinagar to Chikmagalur. The kind of
world which developed around the ghazal
and the qawwali has now allbut disappeared.
When an echo occurs it can still come alive.
TIlls can perhapsbe invokedby a story.
In the early1980s,the PakistaniUrdu poet
Ahmad Faraz made his first visit to Hyderabad. Deeply affected by a verse of Sultan
Muhammad Quli Qptb Shah, a 16th-century prince of Golconda in the Deccan, he returned repeatingit and echoing it in a brand
new ghazalof his own. (Interestingly, Ahmad
Farazisa Pathan and Muhammad Qpi Qgtb
was a Qara Quinloo Turk from Central Asia
whose grandfather Sultan Quli had emigrated to India from Hamadan in Persia in the
15th century)
The Deccan is synonymous with Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, which encompasses
in history the citiesof Golconda, Bhagnagar
and Secunderabad. Urdu poetry originatedin
some area vaguely called Deccan. A pioneer
in writing Urdu ghazals from somewhere
near Ahmedabad in Gujarat is known as
Wali Dukhkhinee. His name suggests that
anyone from outside the twin capital cities,
Agra and Dillee, or the North of India was
called Dukhkhinee or some kind of an outsider.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was attempting a
globalization of the mystic experience by collaboratingwith musicians from other countries and performances in countries with no
Urdu. Such experiments may well breathe
new lifeinto the ghazal and the qawwali.

CWhy c.A1eher ~aba's CWords
Should ~e ÂŁeft as 7hey ~re
Ward Parks, Meherabad
1\ s most ofMe her Baba's lovers realize,
~eher Baba's words, as the words of
the Avatar, belong to the same general category in the human cultural legacy as do
the Qpr'an, the Gospels, the Pali Sutras,
and other records of Avataric advents. Undoubtedly the New Humanity will cherish
and feed itself on Baba's words as humanity has done since time immemorial.
This raises many questions, for those
of us who count ourselves in the family of
Baba's lovers today, as to how this legacy
should be preserved. The particular point
that I wish to address here concerns editing. Virtually all of Meher Baba's books
and messages, in the course of their issuing forth into verbal expression, were mediated by persons other than their Author.
After all, Meher Baba Himself was silent.
When He spoke, He did so through dictation-by chalk on slate, through the alphabet board, or by hand gestures. Thus
disciples played a part in the very first
movements in the articulation of His silence into "speech." Moreover, from what
we know, Baba does not seem to have
dictated His books and messages word
for word. His customary method was to
give out points to disciples who would
write them up, bring them back for Baba's
checking and correction, and then have
them published under Baba's name. While
Baba initiated these communications and
put His seal on the end results, the "editorship" (so to speak) of disciples was built
into the very authorial process that He
employed.
Could it not be argued, then, that posterity should continue what Baba began?
Should not future generations of editors, recognizing that the Avatar during
His own human lifetime can only hint at
greater significations beyond the grasp of
His contemporaries, polish and perfect
what He gave forth in the rough? The involvement of His disciples (so the argument runs) shows that Baba's authorship
is a collaboration between God and His
humanity. Might this not be part of the
very meaning of His silence-that humanity fulfills in speech what His silence
adumbrates? Posterity, by continuing the
work of His disciples, plays its part in the

50

ongoing unfoldment and fulfillment of
His Avataric manifestation.
This is the view that I want to reject in
this article--at least as it pertains to the
reediting of Baba's words. My purpose
here is to argue that Meher Baba's words
should be left as they are.
As you will see, I qualify this assertion in several ways. The books published
during Baba's lifetime, like most books,
contain a sprinkling of spelling mistakes,
inconsistencies in capitalization, cases
of faulty subject-verb or pronoun-noun
agreement, and other trivial problems of
an essentially typographic or minor grammatical order. There is no sin in correcting these. Manuscripts that record in raw
form talks that Baba gave, pose a different
kind of problem, or audio recordings of
mandali recollecting what Baba said many
years earlier. "Texts" ofthese types do need
to be edited, though the editing should be
carried out transparently and subjected to
important checks and balances. I will return to this matter presently.
But what I want to concentrate on is a
category that we could call "Baba's published words." These consist of the books
and messages that were published during
Meher Baba's physical lifetime, with His
evident knowledge and approval, and with
His name on them as author. The Universal Message, Discourses, and God Speaks are
examples of"Baba's published words" under this definition. This body of material
should be left untampered. It comprises
a priceless part of the Avatar's legacy to
humanity; and if editors (with the compliance of the copyright holders and publishers) are allowed go on rewriting it, in the
end it will be rewritten out of existence
and lost.
In ages past, the utterances of Avatars
and great spiritual Masters were protected
by what could be called the traditional
mind-set. People used to honor and venerate their forbears; and what was given
forth by Great Ones of old, their latterday descendants took pride in repeating
and preserving without alteration. "Innovation" was the great offense; to say "we
have never heard thus-and-such" was to
imply that "thus-and-such" is untrue. The
modern era, however, has thoroughly dis-

carded this outlook. The hoary past is now
generally viewed as the source of bondage
from which we need to liberate ourselves.
I do not intend in this article to try to adjudicate this quarrel. Meher Baba often
criticized traditions; yet He called Himself the Ancient One. What I do want to
point out however, is that, for better or
for worse, a bulwark has been lost, where
the defense of Me her Baba'swords is concerned. We cannot complacently assume
that the texts we have today will be reproduced into the future without revision
and transformation. The material foundation for the preservation of Meher Baba's
books could all be wiped out, for example,
in a great world war. If our beloved Avatar's words are to be preserved and passed
down to future generations, we need first
of all to build a foundation of intelligent
understanding that will make this possible. Old formulas will no longer suffice.
We need to see directly the value of what
He has given us and house His treasure in
that sight.
In the preservation and transmission of
the legacy of Meher Baba's words, intellectuals will inevitably playa major role.
Editors, literary exegetes, textual critics,
philosophers, and others of this ilk naturally interest themselves in the words of
the God-Man; historically this class has
usually come to predominate in matters of
scriptural interpretation. And thus a priest
caste emerges. To prevent the distortions
that this kind of development can give
rise to, we need to affirm this fundamental point, that the legacy of Meher Baba's
words belongs to all humanity and that no
intellectual can claim priority over one of
the Lord's lovers. Baba's words should be
left as they are so that Baba's lovers can
continue to feed themselves on them as
He gave them. The rewriting of His words
puts the rewriter, the editor, between the
Giver of the gift and the people who were
meant to receive it. But if Meher Baba's
lovers understand the value of the Avataric
legacy of His words and messages and insist that it not be meddled with, this problem, and a thousand others that flow from
it, can all be avoided.
In the following pages I will advance
three main arguments for my thesis,

I

which is that the substantive reediting of
Meher Baba's published words should not
be countenanced. In a nutshell, the arguments are these :
(1) Since Meher Baba was
the Avatar, His words can rightly
be regarded as the words of God.
The human mind and human
wisdom should not presume to
alter what God has given.
(2) In practical terms, when
one sanctions the revision of
Baba's words, one opens Pandora's Box. As time goes on, new
editors who want to make their
mark and establish their names
in the roster of the Avataric historical legacy will revise more
and more, and the safeguards
and restrictions put in place at
the beginning will gradually be
abandoned. Through this process
the Avatar's words could be corrupted and even lost, as evidently
has happened in the past.
(3) Meher Baba Himself
gave us indications that His literary works should be treated under the laws and conventions that
pertain to the works of a literary
author. The present civilization
respects authorial claims and
does not permit revision without
an author's consent. We should
not fail to accord to Meher Baba,
the Avatar of the Age, the courtesy and respect that we would
give to any other human author.
But before turning to these arguments
in detail, let me first attend to the important caveats alluded to earlier. Two separate problems present themselves: small
mechanical errors and inconsistencies persisting in the literature ofBaba's published
words; and other materials recording messages that Baba gave out at various times
but never got published while He was in
the physical form. Each of these cases
raises a range of issues; and while an indepth treatment must await another occasion, in brief we can respond to some of
the major questions here.

Where Editing is Necessary
espite the need to curtail the scope
of editorship-which is the primary
theme of this article-the fact remains
that a certain amount of editing cannot

D

be avoided; and we should face this fact
squarely. Holding to too intractable a position can be compared to building a fortress wall out of some adamantine brittle
material like crystal. For a time this wall
might seem to repel all cannonades; but
when it breaks, it shatters completely, and
all at once. In the same way, an excessively
dogmatic stance on matters of editorship
will lead, through its own ineluctable logic, to ludicrous and essentially indefensible
positions. When these dogmas collapse, as
they are bound to do sooner or later, the
reaction is liable to be as excessive as the
former intransigence was. Thus the very
manner of the defense could facilitate the
loss ofwhat one had meant to defend.
This is to say that the work of safeguarding the Avataric legacy needs to
be carried out intelligently. Let me give
an example. In 1967, Sufism Reoriented
published the three-volume sixth edition of Meher Baba's Discourses. At one
point one finds the word "possesssions."
Is humanity obligated to go on spelling this word with its -sss- for the next
seven hundred years simply because this
typo escaped the vigilance of the original proofreaders? To make the matter
even more absurd: consider the fact that
the sixth edition went through five printings between 1967 and 1973, two of them
before Meher Baba dropped His body in
1969 and three thereafter. Throughout
the reprinting process mistakes were being corrected; each successive printing
weeded out a number of typographic and
small mechanical errors in the printing
before. A number of these errors , in other
words, were corrected after Baba passed
away. On the theory that no change in
His published words should be sanctioned
without His express permission, ought we
actually to reinstate the errors corrected
after 1969, but allow to stand the corrections made before that date, on the supposition that Baba must have approved all
corrections made before His death, while
the corrections made afterwards represent
the unwarranted interventions of editors?
This ridiculous consequence of an inflexible editorial policy illustrates where mindless dogmatism leads to. To be sure, we
need to protect Baba's words against editorial tinkering; but nothing obliges us to
throw our common sense out the window.
Here's another example. Just as most
of us would balk against revising Baba's
words, probably most of us would resist altering His numbers as well. In God Speaks

Baba said that there are seven planes ofconsciousness; does any editor have the right
to substitute the number "eight"? Instead
of "five" Perfect Masters, can some forthcoming edition tell us that there are "six"?
Of course not! But now consider this case.
The original sixth edition ofDiscourses refers to a table (enumerating the specialized
forms of meditation) on "page 147." But in
the recently published revised sixth edition
of the Discourses, that table appears on
p. 158. Do we have to go on for the next
seven hundred years referring readers to the
wrong page number simply because we do
not want to revise Baba's original text? The
original phrase "page 147" functions as a
cross reference; the very meaning and point
of a cross-reference is to index another selected portion in the text. Ifwe prohibit the
updating of cross-references, it could truly
be said that we have checked our brains in
the locker.
Even in the case of Baba's published
words, then, certain minor editing is occasionally called for.Then how do we prevent
editorial "creep,"whereby one change leads
to another, and then another, and then another, and on and on? Part of the solution
lies in clearly defining what kinds ofchanges are admissible. Essentially we are talking
here about "mechanical" problems-typographic or small grammatical errors. The
Avatar Meher Baba Trust has enumerated
specific categories of editorial changes that
it allows in the text of Baba's published
words. The following list is extracted from
p. 433 in Early Messages to the Wes!:!
(a) spelling
(b) capitalization
(c) punctuation
(d) font
(e) lineation and paragraphing
(f) changes in cross-reference
necessitated by the new pagination in a new edition
(g) erroneous word repetition
(such as "and and")
(h) grammatical agreement
(as between subject and verb or
pronoun and referent) or faulty
parallelism
(i) mistakes evidently resulting
from typesetting and other printproduction errors

To be sure, this list is an ad hoc creation: it merely categorizes and codifies
editorial changes deemed necessary by recent editors. Further editorial work in the
years to come may identify new categories
that need to be added. Yet the list serves
a crucial function nonetheless. It provides
transparency to the community of Meher
Baba's lovers. Anyone doubtful about the
recent editing of Meher Baba's words can
check the list and ascertain for himself or
herself whether it countenances editorial
changes that are more than just mechanical. This kind of transparency, and the
healthy involvement of the community of
Meher Baba's lovers, is the key to checking and preventing unbridled editorial revisionism.
The Avatar Meher Baba Trust has
implemented another safeguard, in the
requirement that a listing of all editorial
alterations be made publicly available. The
recently published revised sixth edition of
Meher Baba's Discourses has a "Register of
Editorial Alterations'? that catalogues all
changes, however small, with reference to
the text of the original 1967 edition. Early
Messages to the West does the same thing.'
Even if the original physical books were
somehow to get lost, one could reconstruct with exactitude the original text in
those books from these registers. In reality,
the literature of Meher Baba's published
words contains only a limited number of
mechanical errors and inconsistencies; I
don't believe it will be necessary to go on
emending these texts for much longer. But
in the meantime, and for posterity as well,
this practice of providing public records
of editorial alterations, along with the
vigilance of the Baba community, ought to
suffice in protecting Baba's words against
the depredations of unconstrained editors.
The foregoing comments pertain to the
editorial emending of Baba's published
words-and by this expression I mean to
refer to books and messages published under Meher Baba's name, during His physical lifetime, and with His evident knowledge and approval. I want to underscore
that the arguments that I am making in
this article against editorial revisionism
pertain narrowly to this category of literature. But there are other records of Baba's
words that have found their way into print
2. See Meher Baba, Discourses, revised sixth
edition (North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina:
Sheriar Foundation, 2007), vol. 4, pp. 230-41.
3. See pp. 432-43 .

52

and will continue to do so into the future.
In the case of this literature unpublished
during Meher Baba's lifetime, significant
editorship is needed for many reasons; this
editorship cannot be constrained so narrowly as in the case of Baba's published
words. Yet significant checks and balances
can and should be put into place nonetheless, as I will explain in a moment. Again,
the key to this process is transparency and
the active involvement of the community
of Me her Baba's lovers.
Here are some examples of the unpublished literature of Meher Baba's words.
Many of us heard Baba's great disciple
Eruch relate accounts of extraordinarily
beautiful "talks" and discourses that Baba
gave at different times. Obviously these
remembered words of the Avatar need to
be transmitted to posterity. Let us suppose that we recover thirty tape recordings
of Eruch retelling a certain message that
Baba once gave. If one wished to publish
this message in written form, obviously
one would need to transcribe the thirty
oral renderings, collate and compare them,
apply a variety of methods in the effort to
ascertain what is most authentic, and publish a readable version that captures what
seem to be the original elements of Baba's
discourse. What I am describing here, of
course, is an editorial procedure. No one
can guarantee in advance the quality of
such editorial work; like anything else, it
can be done well or badly. But to those
who contest the very practice of such editorship in the first place, I ask: then what
do you propose? If someone were to interject, "Make the original tapes available," I
would reply, Absolutely! No one contests
that. But are we prohibited for the next
seven hundred years against ever having
a written version? Such a prohibition will
not be able to stand against the pressure
of a humanity that will clamor for such
material. The attempt to block all such
editorship will inevitably fail. One who
wishes to deal with this issue realistically
will not ask whether editorship should
be practiced, but rather, how should it be
done.
For another example, consider the 250
pages of handwritten material that were
recently published in an edited form under
the title Infinite Intelligence:' Though the
manuscript itself is unsigned and the
4. Meher Baba, Infinite Intelligence (North
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Sheriar Foundation, 2005).

scribe who wrote it out still unidentified,
the book probably records dictations
that Meher Baba gave to His mandali
at Meherabad in 1926. (The evidence
connected with the manuscript and the
case for Baba's authorship of it has been
set forth in the book's supplement.) Now
although the original source notebooks
in their main part seem to constitute a
metaphysical treatise with a sustained and
continuous argument, the writing style,
eccentric in the extreme, would prevent
all but the most skilled and persevering
readers from tracing their course through
the manuscript's stylistic maze all the
way through to its conclusion. Yet these
notebooks have content of the greatest
interest and the highest worth. Is most
of humanity (excepting only literary
specialists expert in dealing with such
material) to be denied access purely out of
concern that the raw and clearlyunfinished
original manuscript should not be edited
into a more readable form? We should
note here that the books and messages that
Baba had published during His physical
lifetime-Discourses, God Speaks, The
Universal Message, and so forth-present

us with an entirely different situation. In
all these cases Meher Baba took care that
the original drafts were properly edited for
publication. Since Meher Baba Himself
oversaw the editing of these works, now
we should leave them alone: that is the
position that I take in this article. But
should the same hands-off policy apply
to records of Baba's words and dictations
that He never gave editorial attention to
during His lifetime but that descend to
us in unpolished and sometimes quite
jumbled form?
Happily, as I see it, Meher Baba Himselfgave us guidance on this very question.
The "Combined Diary" (vol, 2, folio 355)
records a comment that Baba made on
August 7, 1927, regarding the editing of
His words. Baba said:
No, it is not advisable to send my
notes and lectures Jar composition
to anyone who is away from me.
The writer must be here in order
to ensure correctness. For example,
[K J Dastoor] took note oj certain
explanations [of mine} in writing
the other day, yet while putting the
same in his own language he made
a mess oj it all. My explanations
may be re-composedin forceful and
stylish language. but the spirit and

meaning must remain unchanged.
I take this passage as applicable today
not to the books and messageswhich Baba
published after this time-since in these
cases the editorial "re-composition" that
He refers to was attended to by Himbut to messages and dictations where this
editorial work was never done. In other
words, we should treat the "published"
and "unpublished" words of the Avatar
differendy. I think this is a clear distinction. How should we treat them differendy? In cases where Baba Himself saw
to the editing, we should leave the product
of this editorship alone (except for small
mechanical problems, as described earlier). But when we are dealing with material
that descends to us (through manuscripts
or tape recordings) in rough form, then
Baba's directive in this "Combined Diary" comment applies. That is, it can be
"re-composed" in "forceful and stylish language," but the "spirit and meaning must
remain unchanged."
But even here, checks and balances need
to be put in place. The aims of this present article do not afford me the latitude to
delve into this topic in depth; but several
basic observations can be made. When
Baba says that the "meaning must remain
unchanged," I take this to indicate that
editors must confine themselves to giving clearer expression to the idea content
found in Baba's dictation, and they should
rigorously guard themselves against introducing idea content or interpretations of
their own. Now different readers may legitimately disagree on what a criterion like
this implies. I feel that debate and criticism
play an essential role here. Yet despite what
is sometimes said, it is possible to provide
a reasonably specific formulation of what
linguists call the "truth conditions" of an
utterance. When I say "My friend Tom
was born in Hong Kong," I am proposing
a set of identifiable truth conditions that
do not match those of another hypothetical sentence of mine, "My friend Sue is a
strip-tease artist." It is possible, in other
words, to specify in fairly definite terms
the semantic content-the "what"-of a
message or saying of Babas; and editors
should devote themselves to the task of
restating this meaning and nothing else.
This I propose as a fundamental guiding
rule of editorship connected with the unpublished Meher Baba literature.
A second basic check and safeguard is
that, whenever an "edition" or "version" is
published, the original sources should be

made public; and we need to affirm the
unalterable primary of these sources. The
supplement to Infinite Intelligence (p. 457)
states the position thus:
The editors hope that the
manuscript will in due course be
made more widely accessible in
some format to those interested
in it, through facsimile print
publication, digital reproduction
in compact disc or internet mediums, and in other ways. Because of its direct relationship to
Meher Baba's own act of literary
composition, the manuscript will
always remain the primary text
and authority, while editions that
present it to the public will stand
as secondary texts and derivatives.
Since the book was published in 2005,
the original manuscript has indeed been
made available (as promised) through the
Avatar Meher Baba Trust web site. Later
in the supplement, the relative authority of
the edited version (in the published book)
versus the original text of the manuscript
is explicidy described (p, 536):
This edition represents the
current editors' best attempt to
present the contents of the Intelligence Notebooks in a form intelligible to the general public. Yet
the editing was never reviewed
by Meher Baba, and so this version cannot have the status of
editions published in Baba's lifetime under His supervision. The
"authoritative text" of Infinite
Intelligence remains the original
two-notebook manuscript, since
that handwritten record stands in
closest proximity to what Meher
Baba Himself gave out. There
is no reason in principle why in
the future new editors should not
compile new editions that supersede this one.
This principle should apply to all edited versions of original manuscripts and
tape recordings that purport to relate the
Avatar's "unpublished words." That is,
the edited texts are nothing more than
renderings perennially susceptible to
criticism and reworking; the unaltered
original sources-manuscripts or record-

ings-stand undisplaceably as the primary
texts. Applied transparendy with the community of Meher Baba's followers as the
watchdogs, this practice and this understanding should protect us against unwarranted revisionism.
I trust readers will understand the need
for this long digression, that has tried to
indicate where and in what respects editing is needed with Meher Baba's words.
I wish to return now to that specific category that I am calling "Baba's published
words." This body of material is distinguished from all other records of what
the Avatar said and did by the fact that
He Himself, during His physical lifetime,
chose to present it as His message to the
world; and He put His seal on the published result in the form of His name as
author. This corpus of literature holds a
singular place in the legacy of the advent.
Apart from the minor correction of typographic errors and inconsistencies as described above, it should be protected from
further editing, for reasons that I shall
now try to set forth in detail.
First Argument:
Don't Alter the Words of God
he words and books and messages
that Meher Baba had published during His physical lifetime represent, as it
were, a message from the Avatar with His
own seal upon it. Other words of His, recorded in various ways, do not bear this
distinction but belong to the general history of the advent. As one step toward
trying to get a handle on this modey collection ofunpublished records, perhaps we
might consider how early Muslims dealt
with the "hadith" of Muhammad-that
is, the orally transmitted accounts of the
Prophet's sayings and deeds. These hadith
have assumed a high place in Islamic culture; their value to Muslims down the centuries can hardly be overestimated. In the
same way, the histories of Meher Baba's
words and deeds will surely exert an incalculable impact on the future humanity.
But the books and messages that He actually got published would be better compared not to the hadith but to the Qgr'an
itself. Since Baba not only issued these
words forth at the time of dictating them
but also took the further step of overseeing
their editing and public presentation, they
hold a unique place. In the published form
that we have inherited from Him they
carry the Avatar's own stamp as certified
bearers of His message to the world.
cont. onpg. 68

T

q

7he Case of the Singing fl)og
Doug Frank, Oregon
n June of 1989, Baba's beautiful dancer,
Margaret Craske, was living her last
days at Happy House, which was a white
clapboard building on the grounds of the
Meher Baba Retreat Center in Myrtle
Beach. I had become friends with Mary
Lloyd Dugan in February of that same
year. Mehera had gone to Baba just one
month before.
During a conversation with Mary
Lloyd, she revealed to me that her dog
Goulash, could indeed, sing. I found this
revelation to be very interesting but did
not fully understand what she was talking
about. She went on to say that of all of
the people who had heard the dog sing,
Margaret became the most delighted of all
upon hearing a performance.
I was to be at the Center for only a week
and had wanted to visit Margaret while
there, so Mary Lloyd suggested that we go
and visit Margaret together and that she
would bring Goulash and I would then

I

understand what she meant about the dog
being able to sing. So we made an appointment and off we went.
We arrived at Happy House on a beautiful sunny morning and Melinda, who
was caring for Margaret that day, let us
in. We found Margaret on the porch in
her wheelchair. When Margaret saw that
we had Goulash with us she brightened
up immediately. The three of us humans
sat and chatted for five minutes or so and
then it was show time.
While holding Goulash in her arms,
Mary Lloyd emitted a musical tone. She
had a lovely singing voice and was well
versed in music, but also knew exactly the
tone that the dog needed to hear. Within a
few seconds of hearing this tone, Goulash
began to howl. The howl was both haunting and beautiful to hear. I became spellbound. So this is what Mary Lloyd meant
when she told me that her dog could
sing! The dog was indeed singing and the
sounds on that porch caused Margaret to

grin from ear to ear. I felt that I had been
let in on a little secret and was very privileged to be there that day.
Being a photographer, I just happened
to have a Leica with me, so I snapped a
few photographs of Mary Lloyd, Goulash
and Margaret during the performance. I
have had the negative of this image in my
archive for 21 years but have never printed
it.
As one can see from the photograph,
there was a hand written sign behind
Margaret which spoke of Mehera's recent
passing. Margaret died eight months after
the photograph was made. Happy House
burned to the ground a few years later
and Goulash died a dog's natural death
at about the same time. Our dear Mary
Lloyd went to Baba about four years ago at
55 years of age... way too young. It makes
me very happy to think back on that lovely
morning 21 years ago when all four of our
souls were together on the porch at Happy
House.
<:>

II

}

Mary Lloyd, Goulash. and Margaret

S4

I

~vice
Ann Conlon

I

'm going to stick my neck out here and offer some advice to newcomers to Meher
Baba, and some ofit also involves older Baba
lovers in their relationships with newcomers.
Of course, you should feel free to totally ignore all ofit, although parts ofit might prove
useful. Some of it comes out of my own experience, some ofit from other people's experience and some from Meher Baba himself,
who sometimes had to intervene on behalfof
his young followers.
Now, there is also the question ofhow you,
who have been around for a while, tell someone about Meher Baba. The people who told
me about Baba were very sensitive to my
being a Catholic and they led up slowly to
telling me who he was. You'd think I'd have
learned from that approach, but I didn't. I
went one day in the late '50s with one of the
friends who had told me about Baba to see a
friend of hers. The woman had company at
the time, a female New York City narcotics
officer. The woman asked my friend, "How
is Meher Baba?"
The narcotics officer turned to me and
asked, "Who's Meher Baba?"
No hesitation on my part. "He's the
Christ."
The poor woman went right over backwards in her chair and hit her head on the
floor. I have no idea what happened to her
as I never saw her again. But the memory
of that incident horrified me and made me
hesitate for a long time afterwards when
someone asked me who Meher Baba was.
When I moved to Myrtle Beach I asked Kitty Davy what she said when someone asked
about Baba. "I just ask them why they want
to know," she said. If they're not really interested, she said, they'd drop the subject.
One day I was taking some photographs
for a local realtor and she asked me who Meher Baba was. Why do you want to know?" I
said. "I just want to know," she said.
"W ell," I said, "he's a great spiritual
teacher."
"But who is he?"
"He's what in India is called a Perfect
Master."
"But who is he?"
I gave up. "He's the Christ."
Her face broke into a beatific smile and
she said triumphandy, "I knew that. I just
wanted you to tell me."
Obviously, one has to play this sort of

(sort-of) for ~ewcomers

thing by ear. I've just never had a very good
ear for it.
But many Baba lovers do. They have an
uncanny knack for seeing the possibilities in
other people and so they, as an old friend of
mine said, "go fishing."Jesus had one fisherman, Peter. Meher Baba seems to have hundreds of them.
As for advice for newcomers themselves,
the best place to start is with Meher Baba
himse1ÂŁ There's a brief paragraph in a 1969
pamphlet called LifeIsAles!, and it grabbed
my attention early on. It speaks of a time
when Baba told members of the Pune Baba
group: "Don't try to bind My lovers with
discipline and regulations. Let them have
free scope and free play. Suppose you want
to write a love letter full of effusion to your
beloved. Will you like your letters to pass
through some old one in the house?" Being
curious about the circumstances ofthat edict,
I asked one of the mandali about it. Apparently some older members ofthe Pune group
had set themselves up as mentors to younger members, and had become somewhat
smothering. Baba heard about it, called the
group to Guruprasad, and made the above
statement. I heard that story with great glee
and I've never forgotten it.
The point is if you're new to Baba, run
from self-appointed mentors, and if you're
an older Baba lover,don't be a self-appointed
mentor. The phrase "self-appointed" is key
here. Ifyou choose a mentor, then that's your
business. However, you might want to find
one who willpoint you in the right direction,
not lead you. "Leaders" tend to grow to such
size that they eclipse the view of the goal you
had when you started.
A similar piece of advice came from Adi
Irani, Meher Baba's mandali and longtime
secretary. While waiting for a flight out of
India one year, I went to hear Adi talk to
the Mumbai Baba group . He talked for two
hours in Marathi and ofcourse I couldn't understand a word. After the talk, he came up
to me and said, "I' ll tell you in one sentence
what I took two hours to tell them: once
you've told someone about Meher Baba, get
out ofthe way."
I have always been grateful to the two
people who told me about Baba for doing exactly that. They told me about him, one took
me to Myrtle Beach for my first visit, they
loaned me books and gave me Meher Baba's
address in India, they introduced me to the

New York Monday Night Baba Group, they
sent me to India to meet Baba (note that they
didn't "take" me to meet him), and then told
me I was on my own. I think now that it was
an extraordinary thing to do and quite rare.
Occasionally, I ran into similar advice during the next 10 or 15 years. When I moved
to Myrtle Beach in 1970, Kitty Davy said to
me, "Now you turn inside to Baba, you follow your intuition with him and you don't let
anyone else tell you what to do." Good advice
for anyone, I think.
Basically, though, there are some things
you--a newcomer-s-can do to develop your
own relationship with Meher Baba without
following someone else's lead. For instance,
read, read, read, and then read some more.
Of course, read Discourses and God Speaks.
But if you want to know what Meher Baba
was really like, how he handled different situations and how he treated different people,
then look for the stories by people who spent
time with him, some ofthem for many years.
Listen to the audio and video tapes of these
stories. Meher Babas life is probably the best
documented of any Avatar's life. And listen
to other people's stories of how they came to
Baba and how it's affected their lives. All of
those things, plus just thinking about him as
much as possible, will start you on your way.
Ifyou're a Baba lover who has been around
for a while, it's very helpful to new people
if you can remember what it was like when
you first found Meher Baba. Remember
the patience on the part of older Baba lovers? Remember that they delighted in your
"honeymoon" state without interfering with
it? Remember the people who answered your
endless questions so patiendy? Remember
how they welcomed you to Baba gatherings?
Can you do the same for today's newcomers?
And when you come right down to it,
just how sure are you that a newcomer is
that "new?" Considering the millions of lifetimes we've all been through, that newcomer
you may dismiss so easily and unthinkingly
might very well be far older than you in Meher Babas love. As Meher Baba once said,
there are people who have never heard his
name who are closer to him than his closest disciples. That's a very useful thought to
keep in the back ofyour mind when relating
to newcomers.
All (Baba) Things Considered ÂŠ20020
2007 Sheriar Foundation

cc

~vatar

c.JJ1eher fBaba

This description appears in the 2010 edition realization the individual must traverse an from his life's work, and that he would
inward spiritual path, eliminating all false bring about an unprecedented release of
impressions of individuality and eventuat- divine love in the world.
n Indian religious leader also called ing in the knowledge of the "real self" as
Between 1931 and 1958 he made many
The Awakener, original name Mer- God.
visits to the United States and Europe, on
wan Sheriar Irani born Feb. 25, 1894,
Meher Baba saw his work as awaken- one such trip in 1952 establishing the Me Poona, India died Jan. 31, 1969, Ahmed- ing the world through love to a new con- her Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
nagar
sciousness of the oneness of all life. To A similar centre, Avatar's Abode, was ereMeher Baba was a spiritual master in that end he lived a life of love and ser- ated at Woombye, Qpeensland, Australia,
western India with a sizable following vice which included extensive work with in 1958.
both in that country and abroad. Begin- the poor, the physically and mentally ill,
From the mid-1960s Meher Baba was
ning on July 10, 1925, he observed silence and many others, including such tasks as in seclusion, and during that period sevfor the last 44 years of his life, comeral U.S. drug experimenters were
municating with his disciples at first
drawn to him in a quest for spiritual
through an alphabet board but intruth. Through them his admonicreasingly with gestures. He observed
tions against the non-medical use of
that he had come "not to teach but to
psychedelic and other drugs came to
awaken," adding that "things that are
the attention of the news media in the
real are given and received in silence."
U.S. and the West. He warned young
He was born into a Zoroastrian
people explicitlythat "drugs are harmfamily of Persian descent. He was
ful mentally, physically, and spiritueducated in Poona and attended Decally," trying to draw them away from
can College there, where at the age of
drugs and toward a spiritual life.
19 he met an aged Muslim woman,
Meher Baba never sought to form a
Hazrat Babajan, the first of five "persect or proclaim a dogma; he attracted
feet masters" (spiritually enlightened,
and welcomed followersofmany faiths
or "God-realized," persons) who over
and every social class with a message
the next seven years helped him find
emphasizing love and compassion,
his own spiritual identity.That identithe elimination of the selfish ego, and
ty, Meher Baba said, was as the avatar
the potential of realizing God within
of this age, interpreting that Vedanthemselves. Although his equation
tic term to mean the periodic incarof the several manifestations of God
nation of God in human form. He
was syncretic, he won many followers
placed himself among such universal
from sects and denominations that rereligious figures as Zoroaster, Rama,
pudiated syncretism, and encouraged
Krishna, Gautama Buddha,Jesus, and
those followers to be strong in their
Muhammad. "I am the same Ancient
original faiths. After his death his folOne come again into your midst," he
lowers heeded his wish that they not
told his disciples, declaring that all .
."
form an organization, but continued
major religions are revelations of "the
:
to gather informally and often to disOne Reality which is God."
Meber Baba - 1956
Phoro ro Laurence Reiter cuss and read his works and express
Meher Baba's cosmology may be sum- feeding the poor, cleaning the latrines of through music, poetry, dance, or drama
marized as follows: the goal of all life is to untouchables, and bathing lepers. He saw their reflections on his life. His tomb at
realize the absolute oneness of God, from a responsibility to give spiritual help to Meherabad, near Ahmednagar, has bewhom the universe emanated as a result of "advanced souls," and travelled through- come a place of pilgrimage for his folthe whim of unconscious divinity to know out the Indian subcontinent to find such lowers throughout the world. His books
itself as conscious divinity. In pursuit of persons.
include Discourses (5 vol., 1938-43; the
consciousness, evolution of forms occurs
These outward activities Meher Baba earliest dictated on an alphabet board, the
in seven stages: stone or metal, vegetable, saw as indications of the inner transfor- others by gesture), God Speaks: The Theme
worm, fish, bird, animal, and human . Ev- mation of consciousness that he came to of Creation and its Purpose (1955), and The
ery individualized soul must experience all give the world. He established and later Everything and the Nothing (1963).
of these forms in order to gain full con- dismantled many institutions of service,
sciousness.Once consciousness is attained, which he compared to scaffolding tempothe burden of impressions accumulated in rarily erected to construct a building that
these forms prevents the soul from real- really was within the human heart . He
izing its identity with God . To gain this said that a "new humanity" would emerge

ofthe Encyclopedia Britannica.

A

56

2<ids' Comer
Charlotte

~-

/ 0

o

'Z

o

and the
7hree ~liens
Nicole Mendoza [11 years old]
Los Angeles
nce upon a time in the year 3018
on the planet Mars there lived three
aliens. Now two of those aliens were your
average short green things with wide flylikeeyes.However the third one-since she
was a teenager-was sevenfeet tall and was
purple. (Aliens shrink as they grow older).
One day the three aliens were getting
ready to eat some cheeseburgers. However
because the cheeseburgers were in tubes,
the molecules had to rearrange themselves
into 'real' cheeseburgers. This would take
about 30 minutes. "Mom! Since, like, our
cheeseburgers aren't ready yet we should,
like, go to the movies. But, like, don't sit
next to me! You and dad are, like, so embarrassing!" teenage Jennifer said to her
mother Klax. "Urn, 1 guess it's ok with me
if it's ok with your father." Klax informed
her. "Zax!"she called. Zax waddled around
the comer. "1heard youJennifer, 1 guess we
can go. Besides there's this movie out called

The Attack of the Humans that 1 really
want to see. It's supposed to be very realistic!" "Like, you guys can see whatever you
want but I'm going to see the new romance
movie Bilight. Xaylor Fautner is, like, so
HOT!" Klax and Zax reluctantly agreed
and they set off.
About half an hour later a spaceship
landed in front of the alien's house. The
door opened and what appeared to be a
young girl in an astronaut suit stepped out.
The girl's name was Charlotte and she was
i'l

an astronaut-in-training. She had come all
the way from Earth and was very excited to
finally be here. "Oh look, a native's home!"
Charlotte exclaimed happily."I'm going to
go see if they're friendly!" Charlotte headed over to the mud house and knocked
on the door, which swung open with her
touch. "Hello?" she called,poking her head
around the comer.
When Charlotte realized there was no
one home she decided to go inside to collect evidence for her teacher, Ms. Wilson.
"She's gonna be so proud of me!" Charlotte thought out loud. When she saw the
now formed cheeseburgers on the table
she immediately went to taste them. She
took a bite of the first one, and almost spat
it back out. "That is waaay too cheesy!"
she exclaimed and moved on to the next
cheeseburger. When she took a bite out
of this one, again she almost spat it back
out. "Ew what is wrong with the cheese?
It's moldy!" Charlotte took a bite out of the
third cheeseburger, it was just right, so she
ate it all up.
She wandered into the next room and
Charlotte saw three chairs, each made of
different types of stone. She sat in the first
chair but immediately stood up again, complaining that it was too hard. The young
astronaut walked over to the second chair
and suddenly disappeared from sight. The
chair was so soft she had sunken into its
cushions and was gone from view. With
some difficultyCharlotte pulled herself out
COIl!.

onpg. 18

\Welcome to the ,Love Street ~ookstore!
'DtnÂŤ Snow Bibson

W

ell now, its been a few years since I
have written the Bookstore report.
Time to dive back into it again and let you
know about all the new goodies we have.
So here follows items we have received
since the last LampPost issue.
When Msaneh and I were in India a
few months ago we arranged to finally
have made up the beautiful pendants with
the Beloved's face on them so many of
you have been asking for. We have them
in square, oval and round - the last two
covered with rounded quartz, the first one
with glass.
Although our photographic representation here may not be the sharpest - rest
assured the photos in the pendants are
crystal clear. They are set in solid silver
and each one is $40. The square ones with
the rosettes at each corner are I" square,
the oval, 9/10th of an inch wide and 1 and
2/10th long, and the round are II/10th
across. We also have solid silver chains of
varying lengths and styles from which to
hang them.

W

e have just received a book that I
think almost all of you will want to
get, once you have read the review in the
next section: Meeting God in Human Form
by Rick Chapman. It's first on my list of
things to do once I get this issue put to
bed. But that is not all from Rick Chapman.

Introduction

to

Reality

book. The additional chapters reflect the
experience of the thirty-five years that
have passed since the first book: Suffering; Health And Success, The Truth About;
Pilgrimage; Sex; What Is God?, and Channeling, the chapter that actually prompted

the re-issue of the book in its expanded
state.
What I experienced in writing and
proofreading this new version of the book
was surprising to me: I still very much enjoy reading it despite my years with Baba
and my familiarity with what I have written. I see this book as primarily an introduction to Meher Baba and His concepts
as they pertain to the spiritual path, but it
may well be that established lovers of the
Avatar find it enjoyable and useful as well,
given that, explicitly or implicitly, Meher
Baba is the sole focus of every chapter.
Hard cover $24, paperback $15

Rick M. Chapman
An A-Z Guide

to
True Spirituality

Many of you 'old timers' will remember the book from the early 70s (perhaps
it was the first one you read about Meher
Baba?) titled How to Choose a Guru. Well
Rick Chapman, the author, has this to say
about that :
Introduction
To
Reality is a reincarnation of How To
Choose A Guru, with

over twenty new
chapters added to
make it essentially
a completely new

A nother oldie but goodie that just arfirived, but probably needs no review,
is Steve Klein's Praise in Complaint. It has
been out of print for many a long year,but
we have it back in stock again. An excellent insightful writer, Sheriar puts Steve's
essays on their website and we publish
them in the LampPost too. The book consists of both prose and poetry. Steve told
me one of the nicest reviews he ever got

was from my mother, Diana Snow, who Jessawala,with music by eight well known
was a very close friend of Francis Braba- Baba singers, including Jim Meyer, Bob
zon. She told Steve that he, Steve, was her Brown, Cathy Riley and others. $20
second favorite poet. She thought about
this for a moment and then qualified it
slighdy by adding, "a distant second." He
ca ver
was charmed. It is indeed beautiful work.
Paperback, 82 pages $8

press - I received a box of CDs from Ron
Greenstein. It has been on continuous
play for the past 4 hours! Such a toe tapping, melodic, happy making CD - I love
it. An old favourite on it is "Babas Got
My Back." What a fun song! No time for
an official review, but if you are familiar
with Ron's music, you will definitely want
to get The Lion's Share $14.

M

y dear friend Michael Da Costa just
told me of something I think you
will all get a kick out of- those ofyou with
access to a computer i.e. He tells me "In
the 70's Pete Townshend produced three
British Baba Albums, involving several
Baba performers. The second album was
called 'I AM' and included a piece I had
written called 'Affirmation' with a backing
by Pete on guitar and drums, Ronnie Lane
on bass guitar, Ian Maclagan on piano and
myself on saxophone." Our Renaissance
man Bob Fredericks (recently relocated
from Meherabad to Los Angeles) set this
Rap song to some great graphics and then
put it up on YouTube. Check it out - great
fun, and brilliantly done, as are all things
by Mr. Fredericks: http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=qtVpz_njxZQ
This song is also available on my very
favourite of all of Mike's CDs, Lost and
Found $12

n

received a box of the latest CDs from
songmeister Mischa Rutenberg and
before long our house rang with cries of"]ai
Ho Meher Baba!"What a great infectious
song that one is! Michael also included a
note with the CDs: "Why do we sing for
our Beloved? To celebrate Him, to join
with Him, to become absorbed in the
light and love of His being! Here is a new
double CD called Wonder Weaver, which
has over two hours of new songs dedicated
to this purpose. These are my offering this
year to our Beloved Baba on the occasion
I of His birthday. I hope
~ t路~~ .~ 19S04~ ' . ~ d.ty Roll l.c hp .mwM ;" rl
~ ~.~T~Lo . ' .. _IilT.r'Mri.Rraluao.. ~
h.wwkJ hill) ftOt~. ~ 1.,.400",,)1'" AkM 8.IN t.hM 8,,""".
':'!
rc7trx c:5'ltC1-cdJblc (Wah you might join me in
singing these to and for
Mchcrotb..J till: wlIh '"'" f""" IIor.lOIh dw )Otll of
wHIt cJvfelter r58tr/J([
Strcrnobrr:rm,,"-,1Id Bill ,"",-,101 to
Him. I think many of
nd
J;,tltm.. that
bl'.--....
you will find the song
"Jai Ho Meher Baba"
alone is worth getting
this CD. This song
features the voices of
Mehera, Eruch, Mani,
Dr. Goher, and Katie
Irani with a pulsing
~~y~~~ East meets West sound
1Iiii1;;S~:J that will
have you
dancing with joy. I hope
alking of Bob Fredericks, he has just to join you soon in your cars, on your
released a great DVD: Three Incred- ipods, and wherever you are playing music
ible Weeks. Most Baba lovers are aware of celebrating His love, His Truth, and His
just what those three words mean, but Bob infinite Light. Then we can sing "Jai Ho
has put it all together in a very informative Meher Baba!"together." It is a double CD
and enjoyable viewing. In the Spring of and a great value for $20
1954 Francis Brabazon received an invitahave all our vendor's send our orders to
tion from the Avatar saying that all His
my house - its like Christmas opening
Western male lovers over 18 could come
to Meherabad to be with Him from the all the boxes! Even at my age I still find it
10'h to the 30th of September. He and Bill exciting to see what wonderful books are
Le Page arranged to travel together. The being written, movies being made, songs
DVD is narrated by Bill and Meherwan being sung. Today - just before we went to

I

-..It,..,,,,,\rr~''_lhrotj,tol tio:tftnmuld 11'10
10

to

1\

n incredibly popular book written

1"'\.by Sheela and David Fenster, Growing Up With God, describes in vivid detail
Sheela's experiences-as Bhau Kalchuri's
daughter-of just what it was like to hang
with God as a child. Hard bound, lots of
photos, over 800 pages,just $50. David sent
me an email telling me about a letter he had
received from a lovely lady in England (I
know she is lovely - she writes to me tool):

1~IIOrd .". lD

l"CIio! ..

oItlmd thl'

U' IW III

路~l1,",r.ll'll:nodil,k\","L...IlOtthM""w
r u..b.:.

T

I

London, 3 March 2010
Dear Sheela: Thank youfrom my heartfor
the many days ofpurejoy I had reading your
book, Growing Up With God. I became a child
agail1 in the lap of our beloved Father. (I am
75years old!) Ijust adoreyourpertinent questions, your logic and honesty. No wonderBaba
loved it! Even with all my lovefor Meber
Baba, I sometimesfiel separated, as if He were
far away. At moments like these, He always
finds a way to remindmethat He isthere. This
time, it was through your book. I wish I could
read itforever. It isa bigbook, but I could have
continued to read it twice over. The cold grey
winter was nomore, and I was 110t in mylittle
flat in London. I was at Meberazad, in the
gardenfUll offlowers.
Thankyou dearSheelafor this Belovedgift,
In His love & service, Anne Collette
David responded:
13 Mar 2010
Sheela received your lovely card and we
so appreciated your note. just a fiw weeks

59

ago, we met a mother and her 1s-year-old
daughter at Meherabadfrom the States. The
mother told us that her daughter had never
shown much interest in Baba, until she read
Growing Up With God. After finishing
it, she wanted to accompany her mother to
Meherabad, and the girl has since become a
Baba lover. Now, after receiving your letter, it would not be exaggerating to say that
the book appeals to anyonefrom 15 to 7s!! I
know what you mean by feeling "separated "
from Baba from time to time, and to know
that our book was able to assuage that feeling to some small degree is praise indeed!
In His love, David

We still have plenty left - half a thousand
were ordered!

A nother very popular little book, way
.r1Jess expensive-only S8-are the
ones written by Rustom Falahati, which
he titled The Real Treasure. He is now
up to volume three, but since we have to
rely on returning pilgrims to bring these
books back for us, we don't have many. He
worked for and with the Mandali for quite
a few years, and he learned the lessons
such service taught him, very well. One
such gem is the following, learned from
Eruch:
Overcoming Resentment
Through Remembrance
"The following incident happened
when we were fighting to close
down a polluting chemical factory on the
Meherazad approach road...
Eruch would try to calm me by saying
"Why do you get angry, Rustom? Do what
you have to do; be firm, but not angry." I
would reply that anger kept the fight going for me. "W ithout it," I said, "I won't
be able to carry on the way I am doing."
Eruch would just sigh, nod his head and
say nothing more.
On another occasion, when I was angry
with the factory owner Eruch commented, "Rustorn, get over the anger in your
heart for the factory owner. Do not resent
him like this. If you don't do this, the two
of you will end up being husband and wife
in your next life." I laughed and so did
the others who were around. Eruch then
said very seriously, "You have to get over
your resentment. When you don't do that,
then Baba puts you into a relationship in
your next life where you are forced to face
the resentment, overcome it and love one
another. Usually such people end up as

60

husband and wife and often fail in their
relationships and end up divorcing one
another. The resentment from the past life
continues in the present life resulting in
divorce and now will be carried forward in
the next life into a relationship as mother
and child where they will be forced to love
one another. Here, too we find children
having differences with their parents and
breaking off the relationship. This goes on
and on until the two souls learn to love
one another. It is like that."
After Eruch narrated this I asked him,
"What should they do if the situation
becomes intolerable as years pass by and
their dislike for each other increases?"
Eruch paused and said, "Try to remember
Baba more and more and bring Baba into
the relationship. That should help overcome the dislike and resentment."
I persisted, "What if the resentment
persists? What should you do then?"
Eruch sighed and said, "Well if, through
remembrance of Him, you succeed in
working out the resentment and creating
love, that would please Baba. But if the
situation is absolutely intolerable, then
one should live separately or separate from
one another. However, it's important that
you harbor no resentment after that, and
maintain a friendly and harmonious relationship. Be loving towards each other, at
least from a distance. You have to love everyone, no matter what their personalities,
if you reallywant to love Baba and feel His
love for you." The Real Treasure III p.1? $8

A

boOk that was very popular for many
years before it finally went out of
print was While the World Slept. Written
by the Mandali member that Baba chose
to be His night watchman-Bhau Kalchuri-it recounts stories from his years
of sitting outside Baba's bedroom door
from 1953-1969. In this short book we
get a glimpse into a deeply private, often
unfathomable side of the Avatar's internal work. Gripping, moving, sometimes
outright disturbing, we find the Master at
work with both Universe and disciple, occurring in the middle of the night, as the
world was sleeping. Paperback, 120 pages
$14

loRis

Footsteps
A GUIDE TO
MEHER BABA PLACES
IN POONA

~

--

â&#x20AC;˘

â&#x20AC;˘ -.,r_

~~~ -:!!,, "

~ ....

'l ~ Then

.._---

.. . .

. ~

next on your pilgrimage (be-

VV sides bringing some books back for

usl) you might be planning a side trip to
Pune - birthplace of the Avatar. If so, I
know you will find this little pamphlet invaluable. In His Footsteps tells you all the
places that were important in the life of
the Avatar and gives you good directions
on how to reach each place. $3

N

ew Tee shirts! Afsaneh, the Bookstore's CEO and CFO, has a very
creative husband who has designed us
some new tee shirts, so besides the perennial favourite - His signature, to be worn
across your heart, we have the following:

L

ooking for something special from
which to drink your cup of tea or coffee? We have a good variety, especially the
favourite of all time - the MS Irani mug,
pale beige with a maroon ring around the
rim and His signature in maroon. You can
check them all out at lovestreetbookstore.
comlmugs.htm another fave is the Mischievous chicken, looking very perky on a
deep teal green.

T

hat should give you all a feast for
the eyes, ears and brain, at least to
last you till the next LampPost arrives.
Remember to place an order, call me at
c time,
: email

MS Irani is still Ill, but prices have risen since we had those printed up, so the Mischievous Chicken and DOII't
Worry Be Happyfor menare $13. Thebabydollstylesfor theladies with thescooped neck are$14 and the "V" necked
painting of Baba'sface with the rose, originallypaintedby theobsotalentedBobFredericks is$15.

6I

:Jnventory 7ime!
Bust as well our volunteers at the Love Street BanfJ aren't party fJirls, because we always do
.j

Last Chants
Jim Meyer's latest CD
Reviewby Michael Campagna
r. Meyer has finally given us his
"bringing it all back home" - he
gives us a work paying homage to his
many influences. From the Jamaican
rhythms through the blues to the Who/
Springsteen/George Harrison-influenced
"L ove Street" and the civil rights chestnut
"Keep Your Eyes On The Prize," Meyer
brings it all home. Jim has always been a
deeply devotional singer and songwriter
and this record is all those things, but we
get a bonus: some fun and playfulness.
Right from the first track, "Hold On," he
loses control ofhis studied baritone,jumps
up to the cracking high end and joyously
shouts rub-a-dub style. Next we are treated to another interesting departure, some
burning blues guitar by Tom Dimock on
"M eher You," sung nicely by Meyer.
The production is solid throughout,
rocking bass and drums, simple when required, slamming and fun when appropriate, beautiful guitar. I would confidently
say this is as well produced an album as
the Baba world has heard. This work also
gives us dynamics, a very scarce commod-

M

2{eviews
ity in this world . The Who-like rock of
"Awakenings" sets up "The Word"-just
voice and acoustic guitar-so beautifully,
you feel you are listening to a classic album. It is a very well produced devotional,
fun, dynamic work . Plenty for long time
fans and a lot more. $15

Grin and Gulp Gbazals
Review by Greg Dunn
"D aindust " is a pen name of Raine
~astman-Gannett, a.k.a. Rani Didi.
Raine's just too creative and diverse to be
content with one name, and I quite like
this latest one. But what I like even more
is her Grin and Gulp Gbazals, a set of 26
original ghazals written and recited by
Raine against backdrops of nature sounds
and Raine's particular and unique genre of
New Age music. I use that term loosely,
and probably even improperly, but what to
call it? Her music is, as she says on her web
site (http://www.socko.com/nadaom.html). a
quite unique blend of "western, classical,
folk, jazz, rock, gospel, chanting, mantra,
and Indian classical and devotional music."
But it is the spoken ghazals that take

front and center on this CD. They are thematically united by their focus on "sustaining our beautiful birds, plants, animals, rivers, brooks, and pure water"; that is, they
have a topical focus, but still manage to
work beautifully as spiritual meditations.
They are wonderfully crafted pieces: but it
is Raine's remarkable performances of them
that really makes this CD. Those many of
you who have heard her sing know that she
has an exceptionally sweet and melodious
singing voice; but on this CD you will discover that her performance speaking voice
is practically magical.
I love all the ghazals on this CD, but my
favorite is "Naughty Avatar", in which the
narrator sweetly, artfully,and lovingly coaxes the Avatar to regurgitate the sun, which
He has impishly swallowed, taking its light
and warmth with it.
Ticklingyou...S1luggling you.. .J slap Your
back, ka-whop!
Glorious, golden, out it pops with a great
loud"am"sound.
The ghazal is at once warm, whimsical, and heart-melting in its maternal
gentleness. You can easily imagine mother
Shireen interacting with the toddler Merwan - Lord of the Universe who plays to
perfection the part of the mischievous
child.
On the edgier side are ghazals such as
"Money Is Motrin", in which the narrator
recites the various stratagems of those who
have, seemingly,the upper hand in the omnipresent pursuit of material security:
They collect their moneysfrom thepoor and
imprisoned
Theyselltheiradvertisements to addto their
millions.
But these are juxtaposed with a repeated
injunction from Kabir to "throw it out with
both hands", referring to that very wealth.
Near the end of the ghazal we hear the
complete quote:
Ifthe boat isfull oj water - if the house is
full oj wealth- throw it out with bothhands!
Beware: this advice from the Perfect
Master Kabir, so effectively delivered in
Raine's ghazal, stays in your head!
There are many more great ones, but
let me leave you now to hear the original.
I love mixing these ghazals in with music
playlists on my iPod, setting the pod in
shuffie mode, and letting them surprise me
as I rumble down the freeway. It's a world
apart: and a good one. $14

ANew Life

L

ong awaited CD by the multi-talented Adrienne Shamszad! Songs to
the One who ends all longing. Adrienne
wrote most of the songs, beautifully sings
all of them and plays great guitar with a
little help from her friends on a variety
of instruments, including dobro and harmonica.
The songs have much longing and emotion and are sung with Adrienne's whole
heart and soul. It is very relaxing to listen
to. She has included two songs written by
Brian Darnell. Another gem from Phil
Ludwig's production studio at Seclusion
Hill Music. $15
..._- - - - - - - -

- - -

This is "Beyond Words!"
Dina Gibson
he video Beyond Words was first released by Sheriar Foundation a number of years ago. At my first viewing of
this breathtaking film I declared it-in
my opinion-the next best thing to seeing
Him with your own eyes, (which I have
done, back in Sydney in 1956). The reason being, it was filmed in 1967 using 35
mm color film by a maestro - Louis Van
Gasteren. He is a Dutch filmmaker who
was making a film on some rather esoteric subjects, including Timothy Leary's
notion that God could be found in a pill.
While working on gathering research for
this film in the US he met, in short order,
Rick Chapman, Robert Dreyfuss and Irwin Luck. All three told him about Meher
Baba. Louis was hooked! He contacted
various influential friends in India who
put him in touch with Baba's secretary
Adi K. Irani, who told him Baba was in
seclusion. Long story short, Baba made

T

64

it all happen. He came out of seclusion
for one hour to allow Louis and his crew
to film Him. I believe it is the only film
with sound where we can actually hear
Eruch interpreting Baba's gestures as He
"speaks."
But alas, this beautiful footage of the
Avatar sat in the can for 30 years! Paul
Comar, a friend of Louis, talked him into
releasing the footage on Baba to Sheriar
Foundation, who made a video of it and
hundreds were sold at $52. In the latest
release of this DVD there is previously
unreleased footage of Baba, digitally remastered footage of the original film, a
second section "Eruch," documenting
van Gasterens return visit to Meherazad
.., in 1997, and a third section "Beyond
Time." There is also a new booklet
accompanying it that tells in great detail how it all came about, including all
the letters back and forth from Louis,
Adi, getting permission, etc., and then
more from Mani, Elizabeth Patterson,
and Baba HimselÂŁ
But wait! There's more! Not only do
you get this fabulous 38 minute film,
with added footage and a new book,
also contained in the beautiful package
is another DVD! This one is footage
Paul Comar himself shot in 1978, with
a super 8 camera and colored film. TitledAvatar Meher Baba's Mandali - Be- loved Mehera. It previously sold at the
ridiculously low price of SIS. It starts off
with about 15 minutes of black
and white still shots ofBaba, out
and about, with Mandali members, bathing lepers, giving darshan, & just generally beaming
at us. What a wonderful prelude
to bedtime this is, the Beloved's
face and beautiful relaxing music playing throughout. It banishes from your mind all stressful
thoughts of the day just ended,
and gets you ready to have sweet
dreams of Him all night.
As that section on Baba ends,
the film then continues with over
an hour of both moving footage
and still photos of the Mandali.
For those people not yet familiar
with exactly who each of these
wonderful people are/were, Paul
has supplied a title to their still
photos at the end of the film.
Not only does it have some beautiful candid shots of the Mandali
having fun with pilgrims, but

Paul has added footage of scenes around
Meherabad, up on the Hill, Baba's room,
Samadhi-outside and inside-and various important objects in the museum.
And if you thought it couldn't get any better - it does! Paul is a brilliant pianist and
his beautiful music plays throughout the
entire DVD.
But wait! There's more! Paul has
packaged it all up in the most artistic
covers I have ever seen. Besides the very
colorful cover pictured here, on the inside
he has copies of letters both Goher and
Mani sent him regarding his piano
playing. Part of Mani's letter, in her very
distinctive handwriting, says "It is Friday
at Meherazad and I'm relaxing in a
comfortable chair (in which Baba has sat
several times) listening to the tape of your
playing heavenly music while the angels
dance softly around." She and Goher
wrote their notes in November 1995.
Paul tells me it was at Meheru's urging
that he has now released two CDs of this
beautiful piano music. I hope to have it in
the Bookstore in a month or so. I'll tell
you more about it in the next issue. But
meantime, this amazing double DVD set
is selling for the very low price of $48.
However, Paul only sent me 24 of them.
Be the first on your block to own one, and
then you can play hostess, invite your Baba
loving friends over and have a wonderful
evening - lost in His love.

1

The Mystery ofthe
Manifestation

THE MYSTERY OF THE

NlFESTAll0N

Sudden ism, Gradualism and Nihilism
Kenneth Lux
Reviewed by Harry Thomas
Venneth Lux and I began a letter writ.l'..ing correspondence in 2002 when I
wrote and thanked him for having written Meber Baba: Avatar oj the Tortoise in
that it was the only Baba book my mother
(who's not a Baba lover) had read and that
she loved it. He returned my letter saying
that he'd read my article in the Love Street
LampPost about Baba's connection to the
Chinese calendar but didn't understand it.
I informed him that I'd made a video and I
KENNETH LUX
mailed it to him. Sometime later he wrote
back, "I got it - I understand now what
Cover painting by Diane Cobb
you're saying." Thus describes the formation of my friendship with the author of other topics are demarcated by a subheadThe Mystery oj the Manifestation: Sudden- ing that enhances clarity by adhering to
ism, Gradualism and Nihilism.
focused organization. As with the three
As mentioned in Kenneth's book, our positions, the exposition is readily comphysical paths crossed a short time later prehensible.
It's precisely in Ken's notion of Suddenwhen I was living in the Boston area. It so
happened that Ken was scheduled to give ism, Gradualism , and Nihilism that his
a talk in Maine on the Chinese calendar's collaborative intelligence enters into the
relationship to Baba's silence breaking and picture. I may have been responsible for
Manifestation and since I happened to be providing the links between Meher Baba
in town, we became co-presenters. From and the Chinese 60-year cycle calendar,
my perspective, this was the first tangible but there was absolutely no sense of disstep in the implementation of collabora- tinct interpretations for the unfoldment
tive efforts in this particular area. We met of Baba's silence breaking. Would this
several more times during the course of happen suddenly, has it already happened
and now is gradually unfolding like the
my stay on the East Coast.
A few years ago, Ken published Has sun easing into its dawn glory, or in nihilMeher Baba told us when He will break His ist fashion, might it not happen at all? In
silence? It showcased his conception of my programs at the L.A. Baba Center and
Suddenism and Gradualism along with in my written piece, I never voiced these
the Chinese 60-year cycle calendar ma- kinds of thoughts or positions, ones that
terial and other pieces of information. I feel are totally relevant to the discussion.
These various ideas were ably highlighted
In The Mystery oJthe Manifestation, Ken
and by reading the book one gained a solid supplies the reader with an abundance of
grasp of the material. However, with the Baba quotes on the subject of His silence
recent publication of The Mystery oj the breaking and subsequent Manifestation.
I delighted in reading Baba's exquisite
Manifestation: Suddenism, Gradualism and
Nihilism, a substantial improvement has words on this auspicious unfolding reality.
occurred.
Ken's noting that Baba mentioned the
Firstly, this latest book has been ex- number 60 in connection with His birthpanded by 23 pages and in this extension, day in a special birthday message of 1954,
an incredible amount of new and fresh the only time He ever referred specifically
material has been presented . Secondly, to the number of His years,was a remarkeach of the three positions-Suddenism, able observation. Also, Baba's declaration
Gradualism, and Nihilism-has a distinct of His Avatarhood on His Zoroastrian
subheading and the exposition that ensues birthday in this same year was indeed His
is perfectly clear. Additionally, all of the second birthday message.

Additionally, all of the pentagon and especially the dodecahedron material sprang
from Ken's keen sense of comparative
awareness. Stemming from his inspired
reckoning, I totally comprehend that if the
Chinese 60-year cyclecalendar were to assume a three dimensional aspect, it would
adhere to the structure of a dodecahedron,
which from a Platonic perspective, as well
as other contemporary advanced thinkers,
represents the very structure of the universe.
Finally, in the images with Baba,
Mehera and the white donkey Champa,
Ken established the synthesis of Baba's
Advent with that of Jesus, which in effect
links the East with the West. Additionally,
there is the Avataric similarity of these
two events, Jesus' riding into Jerusalem
upon a donkey and Meher Baba riding
upon Champa.
I see our combined efforts as the following - in the year 2002 I served up a nourishing meal ofsoup, bread and cheese. Ken
brought the remaining food groups into
the picture to make for a complete meal.
Restated differently,I offered the audience
and readership one half of the coin, Ken
brought in the other side.
As ofthis writing, we are only four years
away from the year 2014, or more specifically, the 2014 to 2016 time-block. For the
record, I wish to emphatically state that I
am a Suddenist and for the two reasons
that Ken has provided within the text.
In terms of getting in touch with this
material and its prophetic qualities, I totally recommend reading The Mystery oj
the Manifestation: Suddenism, Gradualism
and Nihilism as the method for satisfac-

tory acquisition; and I would suggest its
being read several times. Additionally, I
would sincerely encourage the readers of
Ken Lux's remarkable book to do so with
an open mind and heart.
Given the possibility that this material
might in fact be true, the imminent breaking of Me her Baba's silence and the resultant worldwide Manifestation, then familiarity with the subject would place one in
a strategically solid position to initiate the
next step; consulting with Baba about how
best to proceed.
So Ken, thanks for being the dedicated
voice and engine for keeping this subject
vitally humming with life and projecting
its message to the Baba world and perhaps
some day, to an audience beyond the parameters of our select but ever widening
group.

Meeting God in Human Form
Rick M. Chapman
''It is the very purpose of Creation itself to
serve as a constant reminder to you to remember Me!" said Meber Baba. "Once the
lover roams the various places ofpilgrimage
and eventually comes back to his own place, a
stage then occurs when whatever he doesand
wherever he goes, remembranceflows automatically... a constant interplay of thought
and feeling develops within the lover, and
when his remembrance reaches this stage, he
begins to exalt the Creator wherever he turns
hisface. In this state, it dawns on him what a
Creator his Beloved God truly is! ... eventually he simply remains dazed, silently basking
in the glory ofthe Creator. . . Then he receioes
a giftfrom God... the gift ofmy Love, to see
me as I really am. Âť

(Quoted by Rick Chapman pp. 281-3)
Review by Rosie Jackson, England
Dick Chapman's rich new book is
~uch more than a chronicle of his
1966 trip to India and his meeting with
Meher Baba in physical form. It's a potent love story: an allegory of the divine
romance being acted by us all in different
ways, as we too accept that invitation from
the Beloved to respond to Him and make
our journey to our real home. So although
Rick's account is full offascinating worldly
details-travelling to India from Harvard
on a Fulbright scholarship, taking
up teaching in Ahmedabad, meeting Baba lovers in India, with all the
colourful explosion of the senses of a
first-time trip to India-he is always
aware of the larger frame, the spiritual dimension, the inner journey all
this signifies. It's as if the tale is told
simultaneously on two levels-the
outer one of Rick, the bright American scholar, and the inner one of a
soul ready, after countless lifetimes,
for the long awaited meeting with its
maker-and one of the remarkable
achievements of this book is that
both journeys are told in such eloquent, loving detail.
I have to confess to reading it
almost back to front, initially racing
past the first hundred pages or more
so I could plunge straight into the
section where Rick finally arrives
at Meherazad and the soul comes
home. What's wonderful here is that ill'"
as we reach those few days prior to

66

that momentous meeting, the narrative
is spliced between chapters devoted to
Rick's story and chapters describing in
exquisite detail what was happening
at Meherazad at the same time. The
minutiae of Baba's days and nights are so
beautifully and factually reconstructed, I
felt I was present in the room with Him,
inside the Meherazad household, walking
alongside Mehera and Mani and the other
women mandali, then with the men who
are captured equally vividly. It's like being
on the film set of the most wonderful
documentary in the world, culminating
with the scene in Mandali Hall where
Rick and Baba, lover and Beloved, at last
come together.
The pages describing this meeting are,
of course, the apex of the book, beautifully
written and evoking so fully the setting,
the atmosphere, the company of the mandali, and Rick's feelings and thoughts as
he comes face to face with Beloved Baba,
God in His human form. By so generously
and fully sharing this experience, Rick allows us to partake of it also. We too feel
we are meeting Baba; Baba caresses our
cheeks too, gazes into our eyes, dazzles us
with His radiant smile, touches us with
His all-knowing presence, conveys to us
His sweet fragrance, as if Rick was graced
with this not only for himself alone but
also for all those Baba lovers who, through
this personal story, might be drawn closer.
"Baba sat in His chair with both arms

outstretched, the sleeves of His trademark
long white cotton sadra hanging loosely
around His forearms. His smile could have
lit a thousand universes. No photograph I
had ever seen of Baba comes even faintly
close to capturing the smile with which
He greeted me. That smile went beyond
the limits of the body itself, stretching beyond Baba's physical form and radiating a
welcome and a gladness and a sweetness
and a closeness-and a love--that no
words could ever express."
Here, as the soul comes face to face with
its God, Rick's lucid prose effectively turns
into poetry. How could it not, as the inexpressible, the unimaginable, the meeting
ofthe human being with his divine creator
actually takes place.
"Oh, Soul! Sing for me the words that
cannot be written! The culmination of
lifetimes upon endless lifetimes, the ancient, eternal quest for the Holy Grail fulfilled!"
As always, Rick blends effortlessly the
personal and philosophical sides of this
experience of meeting Baba. But most
importantly, he evokes so precisely the
reality of being in Babas company, that
Baba's presence comes ever closer, cutting through space and time, reminding
us of the utter miracle, the unfathomable
mystery of His compassionate being. And
Rick somehow manages to keep our eyes
simultaneously on both levels at the same
time, the human and the divine. Hence
the emphasis of the book's title: we
are not meeting any guru; this is
GOD in human form!
For those many of us who did not
meet Baba in the flesh, this is such
a huge gift and it made me eager to
know more, to have for example a
description of Rick's next encounter
with Baba in February 1969, as His
physical form was interred, and to
learn more of the experience of his
livingwith Baba'sreality,including all
those trips to India in the intervening
years. Perhaps we will be blessed with
this later. But what we have here is
inspirational, heart- and soul-opening and another of those essential
reminders Baba Himself urged us to
use to remember Him more through
His creation, thus helping us in our
striving to know Him as He really is.
White Horse Publishing, 2010,
292 pp. hardbound, $28.

The Song ofa Lifetime
Cindy Lowe
Songwriter/Singer/Guitarist
December 2009
From the Foreword of Cindy's book:
feel that my assignment from Meher
Baba in this life has been to write, record
and play music that would please Meher
Baba, His Mandali, and His lovers. Now,
in spite of my great resistance to doing it,
part of that assignment seems to include
creating songbooks so that others can learn
my music.
This new edition contains lyrics and musicto all of the songs on my six albums plus
a few others I've never recorded. My original intention was simply to update my 2000
edition songbook, but the project took on a
life of its own and got more complicated
than I'd imagined, and by the time I realized I might have a case of Archive Fever,
it was too late to stop. So I resigned myself
and got to work.. First I figured I might as
well include piano parts. Then I decided
to add my Baba story. Then I added more.
And more. And more and more and still
yet more until I felt I'd done my best. Wel-

I

come to the new, improved, and probably
final edition of this book..
I've included sheet music for thirty-nine
songs. I've created a separate section for
guitar players because I believe it's usually
easier for them to work from lyric sheets
with chords instead of sheet music. There
are seventy-six songs in this part and in
some cases I've included guitar versions
that differ from the sheet music because
I've tried to keep things simple for both
piano players and guitarists without sacrificing the feel of the songs. For beginners,
or for those who cringe at the mere thought
of learning music theory, my transposition
and song learning tips may be helpful.
While putting this book together, one
thing led to another and I included a bit of
information about Meher Baba, although I
think most potential users are already familiar with His life and teachings. I also
wrote a short background story for each
song because my lyrics so often have to do
with Mehera, Mani, the Mandali, and close
friends who were instrumental in shaping
my life as reflected in the songs. I apologize
for any confusion that may result for those
unfamiliar with these names. The truth is
that I'm not an archivist and referencing

everyone mentioned in this book was far
too daunting to contemplate. Complete
information about Meher Baba's life and
work can be found at ambppct.org.
I hope you will use and enjoy this songbook. In many ways, it really is the story of
my life with Meher Baba aswell as a collection of songs. My songs belong to Meher
Baba. So do 1. Avatar Meher Baba kiJai!
[This book is an incredible bargain at $12not only do we have the entire Cindy Lowe
songbook-which is extremely extensive-but
her life story is quite...how shall I say it? Revealing! ElijOY!]

"WhyMeber Babas Words..." cant. from pg. 53

Since they issue from the Avatar,
these words can rightly be considered
the words of God. Humanity should accept what God has given. The ordinary
human mind and intelligence should
recognize its limits and realize that
it cannot fathom the divine Wisdom.
When He has put His seal on a message, it is not within our prerogative to
break that seal and rework its contents.
Now some might reasonably call
into question whether Baba's books
and published messages can really be
called the words of God. One major
line of objection here highlights authorial process: how did Baba's words find
their way from their Avataric Source
into the published form of expression
which they eventually assumed? In fact,
fallible humans were involved in this
process at every step . Someone had to
read the alphabet board or Baba's hand
gestures and transcribe what He dictated; someone had to write this material
up and read it back for Baba's review;
in some cases we know that this rough
material got reworked into a more polished form, as Dr. Deshmukh did with
the Discourses; the final draft had to
get typed out; and after this, editors like
Charles Purdom or Don Stevens and
Ivy Duce, to one degree or another, revised the texts that came to them. How
can one possibly maintain, then, that
the published literary works that ran
the gauntlet of all these human interventions are the bearers of God's own
words? No one claims that Deshmukh
or Purdom or even Eruch was Godrealized. Yet the prose style we find in
Discourses is clearly Deshmukh's, and
God Speaks exhibits Eruch's stylistic
impress. The role of all these intermediaries needs to be acknowledged; and
when one has done so, the pretense that
these are the God-Man's own words
cannot be sustained.
Taking the case a step further, as I
continue to play the devil's advocate :
how can one reconcile the belief that
Baba's published books and messages
contain God's words with the fact that
we find mistakes there? Ought not
God's own words to be entirely free
from error and defect? Then why do Baba's books have occasional typos? And
from time to time one finds other kinds
of mistakes. For example, in the original
edition of The Everything and the Notb-

68

ing, the expression "light-year" was used
as a measure of time, when actually it
is a measure of distance.! Since God is
Truth, God's Knowledge ought always
to be true, and His words ought to express that truth infallibly. The presence
of even one single error shatters the illusion that we can legitimately view
Baba's books and messages as direct
emanations from the Divine.
All of these shortcomings in Baba's
published words that we have identified so
far could be blamed on His disciples and
other literary associates;yet honesty compels us to acknowledge that Baba Himself
sometimes made what we would have to
call "mistakes" according to the ordinary
human meaning of the word. In the year
2000 the book In God's Hand brought to
print a facsimile reproduction of an autograph manuscript that Meher Baba
Himself wrote, probably in 1925. One
finds therein cross-outs and corrections in
Baba's own handwriting. In other words,
Baba's own judgment stands witness to
the deficiency of how He chose to express
Himself on the first pass. (We hear that
Babas own sister Mani, when reflecting
on this manuscript, mused on the possibility that it might need to be destroyed.
Perhaps she wondered whether the greater
community of Baba's lovers could summon the maturity of understanding to deal
with this phenomenon of the Avatar correcting Himself.)
Or for another example of Avataric
"mistakes": a friend informs me that, in
one of the videos ofBaba dictating on the
alphabet board, He clearly misspells "infinite" as "infinate." Doubtless a thoroughgoing search through the records of Meher Baba'slife could dredge up many other
examples of Baba exhibiting ordinary human ignorance. In short, if one is going
to accuse Baba's books and messages with
mistakes and other deficiencies incompatible with God's omniscience, ought one
not to level this same accusation against
Baba Himself? If Baba's words fail to pass
muster as the words of God, by the same
standard ought we not to deny Baba's Di5. Meher Baba's The Everything and the Nothing (Beacon Hill, New South Wales, Australia:
Meher House Publications, 1963), p. 56 (section no. 54 entitled "The Now") contains the
following phrase: "Astronomers speak of time
in terms of billions, trillions and aeons of lightyears..." (I quote from the 1976 reprint of the
1963 edition.) In later reprints and editions
"light-years" was emended to "years."

vinity as well?
Now all of these "devil's advocate" arguments that I have been expressing in the
last several paragraphs-and to me these
arguments reflect the rigid thinking of a
spiritually impoverished age that is even
now in the process of passing away-are
based on a false and superficial conception of who Meher Baba is. The Avatar
of the Age does not offer Himself to us
as a kind of Superman who can fly faster
than a speeding bullet and leap tall buildings in a single bound. What would be the
point of that? He comes in our midst as
a man amongst men. He is one of us and
one with us. He shares our limitations;
but these very limitations serve as means
by which He awakens humanity to that
which is unlimited. No one would expect
Meher Baba to prove His infinite Power
by bench-pressing barbells weighing five
hundred tons. Why should we expect His
Knowledge to manifest as infallibility and
omniscience in the domain of common
worldly affairs? Constantly throughout
His lifetime Meher Baba exhibited what
we could properly call ordinary human
ignorance, or perhaps we should say, notknowingness. Sometimes, indeed, this
ignorance or not-knowingness went beyond the ordinary: Eruch used to tell of
occasions in which mothers laid in His
lap their newborn babies, stark naked, and
Baba would ask, "Is it a boy or a girl?"The
work ofthe Avatar demands that He bring
Knowledge into Ignorance; He Himself is
knowing and ignorant at the same time.
In the human life He lives,His knowledge
appears to be limited in the manner of an
ordinary man. If Baba occasionally made
mistakes, misunderstood or misspelled a
word, got a fact wrong, so what? If it is
Reality we seek, then in Him we find that
Reality lived out in ordinary human terms.
Meher Baba is the God-Man, not some
kind of glorified stunt man.
Returning to the subject of Baba's
words: they can rightly be understood as
the words of God in the very same sense
that Baba's life can rightly be viewed as
the life of God on earth. Since we ourselves live in limitation and ignorance, it
is through this very medium of limitation and ignorance that the Light of God
shines best. Personally I have no worries at
all as to the ability ofposterity to deal with
the various problems and "imperfections"
it will find in Baba's words. Similar issues
arose in past advents regarding the Qpr'an
and Gospel narratives, and humanity

proved itself more than equal to the occasion. Measured against the extraordinary illuminative power of Baba's words,
these "defects" are like sunspots---observable to specialists but in no way diminishing the general potency. Those who find
themselves nonetheless troubled by these
matters should reflect more deeply on the
relation between a superficially conceived
human idea of "infallibility" and the real
Beauty and Glory of the Divine Life.
The Avatar assumes human limitation
in His own Person; but at the same time,
He works through limited means in the
persons of His disciples. Maintaining
verbal silence for almost forty-four years,
Baba incorporated the services of His disciples into His authorial method. His own
Authorship included them. When Baba
dictated notes for Dr. Deshmukh to write
up as discourses, or when He dictated passages in Gujarati for Eruch to translate
into fair English prose as first draft material for God Speaks, these disciples were
serving as His personally selected instruments in the fulfillment of His Avataric
work. And when He placed His name as
author on the books that resulted from
this process, He was declaring, in a language clearly intelligible to all, that the
responsibility is His. Who among us is in
a position to say that these words are not
really Baba's when He Himself said otherwise? To be sure, those of us interested
in such things can fairly take note of the
ways (for example) in which the style and
philosophical thought processes of many
of the discourses attest to the mind and
personality of Deshmukh as the instrument which the God-Man chose to use on
that occasion. But in the last analysis, just
as Dr. Deshmukh personally belonged to
Meher Baba as His Lord and Master, so
the result that Baba achieved through him
is thoroughly His. The fact that Meher
Baba involved His disciples in the authorial process no more vitiates the outcome
than does the God-Man's use (let us say)
of great masts and circle members compromise His universal work.
The conception ofthe phrase "the words
of God" that I am espousing here, then, is
somewhat more nuanced than what often
prevails among religious fundamentalists.
The "words of God" are made such by the
fact that they issue from the Divine Life
of the Avatar and bear clear indications of
His approval as His message to the world.
We should bring to these words the love
and wisdom and discrimination that we

bring to all other aspects of His life. The
Avatar's humanity does not diminish or
vitiate His Divinity, quite to the contrary.
The same goes for His words.
Now some people prepared to grant
to Baba's words the status of the "words
of God" might nonetheless argue that a
continuing editorial revision of His words
can be justified by the fact that Baba's own
disciples and literary associates edited His
words when He was in the body. When
Baba dictated a passage on the alphabet
board, did not this passage in question "issue from the Divine Life"-the definition
proposed for God's words? Yet He wanted
His disciples to edit what He dictated and
write it up properly. Then why should we
today not follow suit? Why should we be
prohibited from doing as His disciples
did?
My response to this involves the idea of
history. There is a time and a season for
everything. When Dr. Deshmukh and
Eruch and Charles Purdom and Ivy Duce
and Don Stevens involved themselves in
the literary preparation of His books and
messages, they were following His explicit
instructions; and the results of their efforts were reviewed personally by Him.
Now I do not for a moment deny that we
can learn much from the fact that Baba's
books and messages came to birth in this
way. Doubtless great thinkers in future
centuries will devote profound meditations to the topic. But the reality remains
that Dr. Deshmukh and company were
there with Baba at the time, whereas we
today are not. Since the Avatar dropped
His physical form in 1969, a tide of history has flowed between His era and our
own. What was, was. The season has
passed for active intervention in the compositional and editorial process that Baba
had completed five and six and seven decades ago. The work of that era stands in
its own right for what it was; it behooves
us now to devote ourselves to the work of
the present and not to meddle in what was
accomplished by Him during His human
lifetime.
Let us suppose that an ardent nationalist from some South American country,
say Paraguay, feels passionately that Baba
ought to have visited his land of birth
during one of His Western tours of the
1950s. "If I had been given the opportunity to meet with Baba in Myrtle Beach
in 1952," our patriot fervently exclaims, "I
would have succeeded in persuading Him
to take a week off from His American

tour, fly down to the southern hemisphere,
and grace my homeland with His blessed
presence." My own response to such a
sentiment would be: Fine! Why shouldn't
someone feel this way? Yet should the histories ofBaba's 1952 tour therefore be revised to incorporate this side trip to Paraguay, an entirely fictional episode, merely
in deference to someone's intense feelings
that it ought to have occurred? Whether
or not this expedition to Paraguay should
have happened, the inalterable fact remains that it did not. Baba's work in the
creation of God Speaks, Discourses, and The
Everything and the Nothing belongs today
to the domain of history as fully as does
the history of His 1952 Western tour.
While we might have affected the course
of that tour had we been there in Myrde
Beach in May of that year, now the time is
passed, and we have to accept it for what it
was.The same holds true for Baba's words.
Neither the factual accounts of history nor
the record of the Avatar's words should
be rewritten by after-comers to suit their
wishes and desires.
As a final thought on this subject of
"God's words," I would like to suggest
what occurs to me as one of the Avatar's
possible purposes in creating these words
in a way that allows for discussion and dissension and doubt. Since the advent and
spread of writing two or three millennia
ago, the mind of humanity has fastened itself on what it has regarded as "holy scripture." While much inspiration and illumination has flowed from this way of thinking (as in the works of the philosophical
giant and Perfect Master Shankaracharya), it has also sometimes calcified into
a kind of textual literalism that attaches
undue importance to words and forgets
their meaning. Part of Me her Babas work
as the silent Avatar was to break humanity's enslavement to mere words and to
force us all to live more honestly, The very
ambiguities connected with Meher Baba's
books and messages will help to free us
from this age-old habit of scriptural literalism, reminding us that the goblet exists
for the sake of the Wine, not vice versa,
and that God's living Presence can never
be made prisoner to verbal iconographies
and mental formalisms.
Second Argument:
Pragmatic Perils and the Slippery Slope
second reason not to countenance
the further editing of Meher Baba's
published words has to do with the power

A

69

of precedent. Once you have let the cat
out of the bag, how to capture it again?
One editorial change leads to another, and
then another, and then another. The human mind loves to tinker and meddle. If
certain precincts in our Avataric legacy are
not declared off bounds to revisionism,
persons in the grip of this tendency will
want to test the limits. In this way Baba's
words could get progressively corrupted, a
bit at a time, until at last their fundamental character has been transformed beyond
recognition and recovery.
Editors endowed with the authority to
rewrite the words of the Avatar are subject to powerful temptations. If, as an
editor, you keep your hands off and leave
Baba's words unaltered, you deny yourself the exercise of your craft. One who
has cultivated a certain ability naturally
wants to make use of it. To refrain, demands self-restraint and entails a certain
renunciation. On the other hand, if you
ply your trade freely, if as an editor you
chop and emend and rework, you find the
satisfaction of "making a mark," of leaving the small trace of your own signature
within the greater Signature of the immortal words of the Avatar. Even sincere
and well-intentioned editors might find it
difficult to resist this lure. Moreover, for
those with a philosophical or ideological
axe to grind, editorial revisionism affords
an opportunity to "spin" Baba's words and
messages toward the viewpoint that they
wish to advance. All these draws, all these
enticements, all this force of magnetism,
acting over time on the intelligentsia, pulls
in one direction-toward the reworking
and revising of Baba's words. In the long
run what stands against this, unless within
the greater Baba community we cultivate
an intelligent understanding and determination to protect the Avataric legacy and
to keep it as it is without change?
To illustrate the problem more vividly,
let me give a hypothetical example: and I
am deliberately selecting a passage from
Baba's writings that touches on a "red
button" issue in contemporary culture . As
many Baba lovers know, Baba's discourse
on "The Sanctification of Married Life"
devotes several pages to the subject of
birth control. Baba says unambiguously
that the use of physical means for purposes of birth control is spiritually disastrous; Baba's indictment is categorical and
allows for no exceptions. Now obviously
this selection from Discourses engages a
controversial topic and butts up against

7째

contemporary social mores and associated
social agendas. For this reason editors of
an "unconstrained" bent of mind might
find themselves tempted to "tweak" Baba's
discourse so as to make it more congenial
and serviceable to their own point ofview.
Let us take two hypothetical editors,
A and B. A is a partisan in the right-tolife movement and feels passionately that
abortion is a form of murder. B, on the
other hand, is a member of Planned Parenthood and believes with equal conviction that a woman's right to abortion follows from her ownership of her own body.
Both A and B are lovers of Meher Baba,
feel that the Avatar shares their own view,
and would like to reedit this discourse so
as to bring it more in line with their fervent convictions.
Each editor finds himself confronted
with the following passage (and I quote
from the seventh edition of Discourses, p.
108):
From the spiritual point of
view, birth control must essentially be effected through mental
control and nothing else. Physical means are under no circumstances advisable even when the
partners seek to use them merely
as provisional and secondary
aids, without intending to ignore
the ideal of developing mental
control.
Now Editor A wants to accentuate what
is to him a clear implication of this passage. Abortion obviously qualifies as a
form of birth control; it follows that the
Avatar in this discourse is condemning
abortion. Moreover, A feels keenly the
injustice that abortion perpetrates on unborn children and sees no reason why not
to introduce a hint of this into the text of
Baba's words. His edited version of the
discourse, then, incorporates a few small
emendations:
From the spiritual point of
view, birth control must always
be effected through mental control and nothing else. Physical
means (including abortion, which
indeed kills an innocent child) is
absolutely impermissible, even
when the parents seek to use such
means merely as provisional and
secondary aids, without intending
to ignore the ideal of developing

mental control.
Editor B, by contrast, believes that Meher Baba, humane and compassionate, understands human weakness and would not
set so high a bar and impose so impossible
a standard on the world at large. We know
of instances in which Baba told lovers of
His to use contraception. Ought not the
discourse to give a more balanced perspective on what Baba's position on this subject was over the course of His lifetime?
Editor B thinks so, and he proceeds to
revise accordingly:
From the spiritual point of
view, it is better that birth control be effected through mental
control. When they can, partners
should avoid physical means; and
when they use them merely as
provisional and secondary aids,
without intending to ignore the
ideal of developing mental control, they should be aware of the
hazards they are incurring.
Obviously both Editors A and B have
given the passage meanings and colorations that it does not have in its original
form. Now, readers of this present article
might find themselves more offended by
the particular reedited version that clashes
with their own beliefs on this particular
controversial subject: we all react most
when it is our own ox that is being gored.
But whatever your convictions may be on
abortion and birth control, consider the
broader question: do we really want Baba's
words subjected to this kind of thing, on
an on-going basis, decade after decade,
generation after generation? In order
to highlight the danger, I have provided
above two rather gross examples of editorial revisionism; yet a skilled editor could
subtly shift and nuance a passage in ways
that most readers would never notice.
And once this process starts, where does
it end? Yet this whole pernicious trend can
be stopped dead in its tracks before it can
gather any momentum through insistence
on the clear and simple principle that Meher Baba's words should be left as they are.
At the present time topics like abortion capture the public attention. Yet we
have no way of knowing now what issues will arise as time goes on and Baba's
manifestation unfolds. In the fourth and
fifth centuries of the Christian era, huge
controversies swirled around the nature of
the Trinity. Yet the Gospels never mention

the Trinity as such; and it is hard to believe
that most Christians forty years after the
crucifixion of Christ would have bothered
themselves much with Trinitarian subtleties. Similarly, Muslim philosophers and
theologians in the tenth-eleventh-twelfth
centuries battled among themselves as to
whether the Qur'an was created or uncreated or whether creation itself was coeternal with God or originated at a moment in
time. Again, one searches in vain for definitive answers to these questions within Islamic scripture. The point is this: that the
future remains a closed book to us, and we
have no way of guessing what controversies
the years ahead will bring. Yet if partisans
to these controversies have, as one of the
instruments at their disposal, the reediting
and "tweaking" ofBaba's words into a form
more supportive of their own views, many
will find themselves tempted, and the posterity ofBaba's words in their original form
fallsinto doubt.
Now some might object to what I have
been saying on grounds that the prohibition of unconstrained editing vitiates expressivefreedom. The argument might run
something like this: '~s a lover of Meher
Baba, and as an independent creative being, I have an unalienable right to take
Him into myself according to the form
of my love for Him. I am free to interpret
His words as I like; and that freedom has
an expressive dimension . When I edit and
re-compose His books and messages, I am
exercising prerogatives that belong to me
and are no one else's.What business is it of
yours if I choose to republish Baba's words
in the form that I prefer?"
Now this objection is based on a fundamental confusion. To be sure, everyone
retains the freedom to approach Baba and
to understand His books and messages as
he or she chooses. Yet Baba's books were
Baba's. He was, after all, an autonomous
human being. It is dishonest to present
one's own interpretations as though they
originated with Baba Himself directly; and
when one rewrites Baba's words without
plainly disclosing what one has done, one
purveys a deception on others. Baba belongs to us each individually; yet Baba also
belongs to us all, and boundaries need to be
observed out of our respect for our brothers and sisters in His love. If I passionately believe that Baba's real view on birth
control and abortion was such-and-such,
I have many avenues of persuasion at my
disposal. I can give talks, I can write books
and articles, I can start a movement within

the Baba world. Yetwhen I take the further
step of altering Baba's own messages,when
I make His original words unavailable in
the editions that I print by replacing them
with my own version ofthem, I preempt the
choice of others, denying to them the basis
of judgment that I myself have used. My
so-called "freedom" entails the abnegation
of the freedom of others. Monopolizing to
myself the exercise of interpretive discretion, I force my views and interpretations
on other people, at the same time shielding
myself from responsibility for what I have
done by imputing it to Baba.
Where Baba's books and messages are
concerned, the freedom and prerogatives
that matter are those of the generality of
Baba's lovers, not those of the editors specially. The Avatar's words belong to everyone; they should never become the exclusive playground of an elite. Baba has said
that in the past priests tampered with scriptures and revised holy books. In this advent
we should try to preserve the legacy of His
words inviolate in their original form.

Third Argument:
Respecting Meher Baba
as a Human Author
he last argument that I wish to advance is to my mind decisive, since it
follows from hints that Meher Baba Himself gave. Over the last several hundred
years a body oflaw has come into existence
that recognizes and safeguards the rights of
authors. At several points during His life
Meher Baba made specific provisions for
the ownership and posterity of His "literary"works under the terms and protections
of this law. One of the rights of authors
universally recognized today is that you
don't rewrite his books after he has died. If
we are prepared to accord such respect to
ordinary human authors, by what rationale
do we deny it to an Author who happens to
be God in human form?
The branch of law that I advert to, of
course,is copyright law.Some people might
have supposed that the words of the Avatar,
since they speak to all humanity and surely
qualify as "universal" under any definition
of the word, defy human ownership and
can never be brought under the yoke and
binding of any human mandate. Yet the
Avatar Himself judged otherwise. From
as early as the 1930s we find Baba taking
steps to protect the copyrights in His writings. Yet the decisive moment arrived on
July 17, 1967, when Meher Baba executed
His "Last Will and Testament," signed per-

T

sonally by Him, and by Eruch and Mani
as witnesses. Almost half of Baba's "W ill"
is devoted to detailing arrangements for
the posterity of His copyrights. Certain
copyrights Baba had gifted to Sufism Reoriented a decade earlier; and this gifting
He reconfirmed in His "Will." All other
copyrights of His He bequeathed to the
Avatar Meher Baba Trust, created by Him
in 1959. This body of copyrights included
those in "literary works, direct and indirect,
published and unpublished, including my
'Sayings,' 'Poems,' 'Messages,' ~cles,'
'D iscourses,' 'Books,' 'Charts,' 'Maps,' etc.
as well as the copyrights already gifted to
me and those that may be gifted to me in
the future by other writers who love me..."
In terms of the theme of this article the
crucial point here is not who Baba gave
His copyrights to but what copyright itself
implies. Copyright enshrines in law a distinctly modern conception of authors and
authorship. By this conception, an author
actually owns what he or she creates. Certain rights of authorship can be licensed or
sold by the author, as when an author licenses a book for publication or even sells
copyrights in the book outright. But an
author possesses other rights that are inalienable-such as the right to be identified as the author of his or her own creative
work.. Although William Shakespeare died
almost four hundred years ago, neither I
nor anyone else will ever have the right to
claim Hamlet as a play that we wrote. In
other words, contemporary law recognizes
and dignifies authors, and it insists on the
indissoluble link between the products of
authorship and the human individualities
that created them. In taking this stand, this
branch of law merely formalizes an appreciation that has developed over recent centuries and established itself as a commonly
shared moral sensibility in the civilization
at large.
I do not mean to imply that the civilizations of the past disregarded or devalued authorship. Far from it! Traditional
cultures often attach the highest premium
on a text's authority, which is to say, its
"author-icity."The Christian Middle Ages,
for example, had an informal hierarchy
ranking the "auctoritas" of classic texts,
and serious intellectual disputes were often
adjudicated on this basis. In fact, the idea
of the "author" has been around since time
immemorial, and its history is extraordinarily complex. Yet the point I have been
making is that, as a significant change and
new contribution, modernity has recon-

7I

ceived authors and their creative work in a
new cultural and legal framework, whereby
literary works are "intellectual property" and
authors are the owners of that property. You
can't trespass across another man's land, or
start tapping and hammering and sawing
away at his house, without his permission.
The same goes for an author: you need his
okay before you start messing around with
what he wrote. Authors are indeed notoriously fussy about such things! As a matter of
fact, Baba Himself did not exhibit this particular trait (of authorial obsessiveness with
literary niceties); nor does He seem during
His human lifetime to have cared especially
about His ownership of His books and messages. Rather, I feel that, in His attention to
copyright and other literary matters, He was
giving humanity guidance as to how to treat
His literary legacy after His human death.
Where editorship and publication are concerned (since these domains directly relate
to copyright), we should accord to Him the
courtesies and considerations that we give to
all other human authors.
Ironically enough, the Avatar's own lovers and devotees are liable to disregard these
courtesies precisely because of the very intimacy that they feel with Him as their
Beloved. Many of us experience Baba as
uniquely and personally "mine." Babas words
speak within me as the words of other authors do not. They well up from inside; they
participate in the intimate secrecies of my
love-dialogue with Him; I can hardly even
distinguish them from my own words, the
words that I would say to myselÂŁ When I
"rewrite" His words, I am actually conforming them to the higher law of the love that
is between us. Subjectively speaking, Babas
published words, absorbed into my daily life,
mingle freely and without distinction with
the words that my own heart whispers. Who
dares to dictate, who dares to intervene himself, in what passes between my Beloved and
me?
And thus for the best ofreasons the Lord's
own lovers, acting in the capacity of editors,
could serve to facilitate in the corruption of
His literary legacy to the world.
I have nothing to say in criticism of those
who "rewrite" Baba's words in the intimacies
of their personal love-relation with Him.
That is their business. Yet the private and
public spheres should not be confused. For
in truth, our beloved Avatar can be conceived
and approached in any number of ways. To
some He is the inconceivable transcendent
Absolute and illimitable Ocean, nirgun and
nirakar; to some, the very personification of

72

Beauty and Resplendence, Love and Knowledge, Power and Bliss, God endowed with
forms and attributes; to some, a man of Iranian extraction and Indian nationality who
was born on February 25'h, 1894 and who
died on January 31 st , 1969. Meher Babais all
of this, and more. Yet where the editing and
publishing of His words are concerned, we
should approach him as an ordinary man and
human author. This, I feel, is the indication
that He has given to us.
To recapitulate: Baba's act ofhaving placed
the posterity of His words under the protection of copyright gives us a hint of His wish
not only as to who should exercise the authority of the caretaker of this intellectual
property but how His words and literary
works should be treated. They should be
given the same protections and courtesies
as are customarily given in the modem era
to the recorded words and literary works of
any other man or woman. Modem sensibility and ethical culture prohibits the rewriting
of published literary works after the author
is dead. We should not deny to our Lord the
same honor and consideration that we freely
give to everyone else.

Fixed Words in theLifeoftheSpirit

J\ fter

every Avataric Advent a new civi.r1..lization forms itself on the basis of the
legacy that He has left behind. Inevitably
those after-comers who did not meet Him
but have leamed to love Him try to hold on
to what they know of Him in an attempt
to keep alive His ineffable fragrance. Yet
as Baba Himself has said, such attempts to
"commemorate the association with a great
spiritual Master" are like the work of an archeological department that succeeds only
in resuscitating the past," Preserving Babas
words, even at its best, cannot substitute for
treading the path that His words point to.
His words find their fulfillment and highest
expression in those who actually live them. In
the real sense, the finest-indeed, the consummate-"edition" of Meher Babas words
is the lover ofGod who loves, obeys, and surrenders to Him one hundred percent.
For such a lover, why do Meher Baba's
"words," in the literal sense, matter at all?
For some, they do not, nor need they. But for
others, His words can provide a fixed point
in a dynamic relationship. The same could
be said for Babas photographs. In real life,
Babas face was endlessly changing, with

6. See Meher Baba's "Message to Reporters
and Press Representatives,"in Early Messages to
the West, p. 6.

one magical expression melting and transforming itself into the next, like a river of
miracles. A photograph captures and freezes
one single moment in this flow. Yet in the
life of a lover, this one frozen moment can
serve as a launching pad for flights of love
that no boundary nor ceiling can contain.
The dynamism that was His life among us
continues in the life of such lovers in their
remembrance and adoration of Him.
His words can function similarly. No
doubt, as we have often heard, those words,
when we read them in the black and white
ofprinted editions, cannot compare with the
same words spoken aloud by Eruch and resonating against the fathomless background
of His Silence in the moment when He dictated them. Yet the absence of that does not
stop the lover of God who reads His books
today. As Don Stevens has related, Baba
spoke of "atom bombs" of spiritual energy
that His words contain. For those of this
bent and inclination, His words, mined for
these lodes of spiritual dynamism, can serve
as an invaluable tool and resource in the life
of their love for Him.
What I mean to say is this: that fixing and
establishing His words does not "fix" and
"freeze" the life of the spirit. But it can help
to protect His lovers and the generations
to come from those who want to meddle.
His words, like His photographs, capture
something uniquely His, something that is
authentically and personally Babas. This remains true even when the prose style through
which these words flow to us owes to Eruch
or Dr. Deshmukh: after all, these disciples
too were Babas, and they served at His direction as the instruments that He personally
chose for this very work. Best for us now is to
leave this legacy and this substance alone. He
knows what food we need. What we do with
this food, how we use it in living out our lives
oflove and service, is another matter.
Whatever short-term provisions Meher
Baba may have put in place as regards copyright and literary custodianship, in the long
run the legacy of His words belongs to humanity in general and especially the lovers
of God. Those who most love the Avatar's
words will keep them best. The work of the
present is to preserve this legacy intact and
uncorrupted so that it can pass into their
hands.

~eautiful
III our last issuewe told you the Beloved had
filially released Fiona from her suffering. Her
husband Mirek, who had been writing his
amazing poems-love offirings to Babaabout the cancer that ravaged herface, told us
he would be writing about their last days togetherfor this issue, but alas, he was not up to
it by press time . However three ofHis lovers
from England sent me their tributes to this
amazing couple.

From Anne Marie Collette
iona and Mirek, their sufferings were
immense, their Faith and Submission
incomparable, all throughout their calvary, they have been an inspiration to me
in surrendering and loving God. Through
them, each difficulty in my life was put
into perspective, and their admirable resilience and Faith, will always remains a
source of inspiration. I have always associated Fiona with beauty; even when I kept
receiving the terrible news of the painful
destruction of her face, I always perceived
beauty, her inner beauty was so radiant.
I have her last letter-she was already
very ill, her face savagely damaged by the
unforgiving cancer-but the letter was
equal to all she had sent before, beautiful
hand writing, a lovelydrawing, not a word
of complaint, and the envelop full of glitters and little stars, that was Fiona . And
Mirek, by the grace of Meher Baba and
his love for her, could see that true beauty until the end. What a wonderful love
story!

F

clear, Celtic beauty shining quietly out of
a photograph. And yet, I knetu her, but
from where or when heaven knows. But
in the closing chapter of her life this time
on earth, I felt very close to her. She had
been in my prayers night and day. Who
could possibly plumb the depths of her
suffering or share her anguish? Only Baba.
And see how He put beside her on that
long journey, one who became not only
her constant, loving companion, but also
her wholly devoted guardian and matchless protector. For Mirek, Fiona was his
life. His love for her was his gift to Baba.
So many came to know of her and love
her too through the powerful flight of his
poems, which lift the reader on wings of
emotion, beauty and spiritual intensity.
I wrote to Fiona earlier in the year 'out
of the blue', having a week or so before
sent her just a brief message on a small
card with a picture of a bird, no address
or contact details. So the letter I sent
a couple of weeks later gave my address
and cell phone number so she could reach
me for anything she wanted . I was deeply
happy to receive a long, handwritten reply,
in which she wrote:

one of them. What Baba asked of her she
gave unflinchingly and unstintingly - a
brave, brave heart. On the eve of Diwali
He added this bright light to the constellation ofjewel stars that adorn His throne.
Mirek has been the guardian of her unwavering trust, faith, love and dedication
to the Beloved throughout her months of
unimaginable suffering.

"Unable to sleep, I was actually thinking
the other morning...I
wanted to thank you for your card, but had
no contact details fol' you. Having decided
to ask my friend to help with that, I drifted
off to sleep. Later that very same day, your
letter plus contact details arrived in the post!
Always a delight when suchsynchronicity occurs... "

emails.

Sue Chapman added:
"Ihad the great privilege to encounter Fiona in this lifetime, and her
courage and fortitude continue to be an
inspiration to me. Mirek and Fiona demonstrated love and courage beyond imagination in their life together in Baba, and
Mirek's faith, trust and understanding of
Beloved to sustain in the soul's journey is
in itself, an awakening. Thank you dearest
Fiona and Mirek."
As our regular readers will know - I was
in awe of the looe.faitb and obedience to His
wish, will and words they both had. Before
the cancer took her eye and she couldn't use
the computer anymore, we frequently corresponded and she would send me beautiful

ofyou at around Sam

Something really strange happened yesterday - I went to Meherabode to check mail,
and in my box I found a large envelope addressed to me in Fiona's distinctive handwriting. It was packed with samples ofthe
beautiful artwork on the greeting cards she
had created. I thought this was very strangeit arriving now, so I checked the postage date
A flutter of tiny heart-shaped confetti on the envelope. To my astonishment it was
had scattered around as I opened her let- 27/10/05!! Even from the other side Fiona
ter. The pieces slipped into books, under reaches out to us, so I would /ike to share her
rugs and cushions, into my bag and even beautiful artwork with you all
See hack cover.
into one of my shoes! Each day or so for

weeks it seemed I was finding another
minute pink, silver or gold heart, carefully
picking it up and placing it alongside all
the others on my bookshelf in front of the
picture of Baba.
The card she sent is in front of me
now. It is an exquisite mounted piece of
detailed artwork, a brightly coloured and
detailed picture of a girl in costume, titled
'Dorotka.' The penciled signature says
Sarah McNeill
'Fiona Popowicz. 2008', It was numbered
didn't know Fiona. I never met her. 170 of 300 she had made. Such a gift is to
I The only time I ever saw her was in the be treasured forever.
Scotland is a land of heroes. Fiona is
pages of the Love Street LampPost - that

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75

JWadhusudan
::Rejoins 2lis
fBeloved
Baba once said to Madhusudan: "You have
composed bbajans, an arti and songs in my
praise, and there are hundreds oflovers at distant places who hear and sing your compositions. These have helped them to love me more
and more. So remain as active as ever, and
do my work in Poona with love, enthusiasm,
zeal and devotion, knowing that Poona is my
birthplace."

M

adhusudan was a teenager in the late
1940s when he first became aware
of Meher Baba. According to Bal Natu's
Glimpses ofthe God Man, it was at this time
that he started experiencing mental crisis.
Natu writes, "His love for music provided
some consolation in life. This resulted in
his friendship with Ramchandra Rao, a
singer from north India... This comradeship led him to participate in Meher Baba's birthday program... Madhusudan was
not very interested in lectures on Baba,
but nevertheless he wished to continue
his visits for the weekly bhajans... These
programs gradually awakened in him a
longing to see Baba in person. But there
was a circular restricting darshan and even
correspondence with Baba. Sule, who
generally delivered talks at the meetings,
convinced some of the youngsters to take
the risk and have Baba's darshan. He told
them that by imposing various restrictions, Baba was trying to create thirst in
the hearts of His dear ones to see Him...
Thus a young group of seven Baba lovers
resolved to risk a visit to Baba in Ahmednagar, and Madhusudan was one of them.
"In the morning on August 21, all of
them presented themselves at Adi's office in Khushru Quarters, now called
Meher Nazar. The preparations for the
New Life were being made at breakneck
speed. Adi was overworked with the details that he had to see to. When he found
this group in the office he was amazed
and said, 'Haven't you read the circular?
Who advised you to come over here for
Baba's darshan?' The group was nervous;

76

no one expected a cold reception at Baba's
office! Someone apologized to Adi for
troubling him. But the way in which all
behaved and the overflowing longing that
was visible in the visitors' eyes made Adi
say, 'You see, Baba is very busy and He
does not see any visitor. In the morning I
drove Him to Meherabad; in the evening
I shall take him to Meherazad. If you can
wait till evening, and can risk waiting on
the road, nearby the railway station, I will
drive slowly and you may have a glimpse
of Baba. This much I can do and nothing
more ...
"By late afternoon all began to stroll or
sit under the shade of the trees, about the
spot fixed by Adi. The eyes of all were set
in the direction of Meherabad. They anxiously waited and waited but there was no
sign of the blue Chevrolet carrying Baba.
Time weighed heavily on their minds. It
was past seven. The last bus for Poona was
at eight and yet there was no car in view.
Though unwillingly, they decided to leave
for the bus stand in a few minutes. Madhusudan folded his hands in the direction
of Mehera bad as a salutation to Baba.Just
then a car was sighted...
"M adhusudan felt that a tender beam of
soft light flashed from the car and flooded
his soul. As the car passed by rather slowly,
he saw Baba smiling; beauty and majesty
seemed blended in His expression. Baba's
marvelous look reminded him at once of
the dream he had had the previous night.
"In the dream, Madhusudan had seen
the huge and mighty, but most tender and
noble figure of Lord Vishnu, the Sustainer
(Parvardigar), gracefully smiling. As he
moved on to approach the Lord, His form
miraculously disappeared and in its place
there shone a disc of bright light, rotating and rolling farther and farther away.
At last it entered a very small temple of
Lord Krishna, the Flute Player. As the
halo touched the statue, it got merged in
the idol of Krishna... With the vivid recollection of this meaningful dream and
with the vision of tender light touching
the core of his heart, Madhusudan could
not contain himself, he lay on the road as
if dazed .
"Adi's car moved some distance and
stopped. The Poona group hastened, rather ran, to meet Baba. He called all near
Him and blessed each of them. At Baba's
instructions Vishnu, one of Baba's disciples, helped Madhusudan walk to the car.
Baba smiled and placed His healing hand
on Madhusudan's head . He gestured, 'I

know you love me. Continue to love me
and remain happy. My nazar is on you...
"M adhusudans fondness for music was
an excuse for Baba to draw him in the orbit of His love, in His own unique way.
In the aforementioned dream, when Madhusudan found himself at the threshold of
Lord Krishna's temple, there came out
the words from the inner chamber, 'Sing
a song.' And he sang one. Baba's divine
touch not only inspired Madhusudan to
sing, but even to compose beautiful songs
for Baba. His compositions in Hindi and
Marathi were later very much appreciated
by Baba. Many of these songs were sung
in Baba's presence and in the public meetings too. Especially the arti, Meher mana
arti swikaro (I offer my mind to Thee, 0
Meher, accept it as my arti), was sung in
chorus before Baba by hundreds of His
lovers."
Subhadra Bundellu had sung bhajans
with the Poona group dating back to about
1947 when she first met Baba. Madhusudan's marriage to her took place before
Baba at Guruprasad on May 14th, 1959.
Subhadra was a Harijan (an Untouchable,
the lowest caste), while Madhusudan was
a high-caste Brahmin. Yet they had the
distinction of being the only couple Baba
ever married." Baba blessed the couple,
and later they were formally married at
the registrar's office in a civil ceremony.
It is recorded in Lord Meber that "In the
middle of the ceremony at Guruprasad,
Baba commented: 'Only Eruch knows
why I am doing this (marrying them), but
no one knows the work I am doing in between. This is the first and last wedding
performed by me as Baba."
Sources:
Glimpses ofthe God Man (Vol. 2)
by Bal Naru,
and Lord Meber
pp.3291,4901,5593-5595.
"In late 1968, Dara and Amrit Irani
similarly appeared before Baba for their
"wedding, " although the legal ceremony was
performed elsewhere.

2ioldinn 2iands with Bod
Eary e. <..Mullins
I94 0 - 2009
Lois Breger
Savannah, Georgia
ongtime Baba follower Gary lVlullins passed away on November 29 th
in Savannah following a gradual decline in health after heart surgery.
Gary was a writer and an educator
who taught in several public and private schools in the southeast. He was an
accomplished tennis player and coach
with a variety of interests, including a
love of literature, cinematography and
classical music. In the mid-seventies,
he moved to the Myrtle Beach area to
be near the Meher Center where he
especially enj oyed visiting with Margaret Craske, Kitty Davy and Frank and
Irene Eaton .
Gary's adventure with Mehcr Baba
began in 1961 on a San Francisco street
corner when he met lVlurshida Ivy Duce
after picking up a package she had
dropped. That chance encounter was
the beginning of his spiritual journey,
and a year later he attended the EastWest Gathering in India. Although he
had a strong connection with Murshida
Duce and later, Murshid James Mackie,
Sufism Reoriented was not destined to
be his path.
Gary faced many challenges in his
life and had somewhat of a mercurial
temperament. As his former wife, Amie
Ruth, acknowledged, "Most people had
to deal with the thorny side of Gary,
not the rose of his essence," but Baba's
impact on him was profound . In his
memoir, Dan cing the Beguine, published
in 2000, Gary wrote eloquently about
being with Baba at the East-West
Gathering:
"I would give up everything in life,
and I mean everything, if I could experience, once again, those few moments
when I first met Meher Baba. It happened that first afternoon when the

L

Western men met Baba at Guruprasad.
It is so precious and so exquisitely rare
that every moment in my life is an opportunity to relive it, if I can but learn
h ow.. ..
"We were being introduced to Baba
by Eruch. When my turn came, I stood
still for a moment as Eruch quietly
asked my name. He then introduced
me. Baba, sitting on His couch , beckoned for me to come to Him - so simply, so childlike, and so far beyond any
words I could possibly create. I walked
to Him and He reached up and pulled
me down in an embrace that is forever.
I experienced His hug as the essence
of intimacy, yet at the same time His
embrace was perfectly impersonal. For
a few seconds, I was simply in another
world, in a tranquil pink and blue cloud,
in a sky far, far higher than words can
convey. For one eternal moment, which
grows richer with each passing year, I
was at home with my real father, Avatar
Mcher Baba.
"One morning with Baba, I was with
a group of people sitting right in front
of Him . As we were about to leave, I
was watching him, but He was looking in another direction. Suddenly,
with unimaginable perfection, His
hand darted out and grasped mine. He
squeezed it so very, very hard. What a
timeless, timeless moment. It has always brought to mind something He
once said : 'Five minutes in lVIy presence
is worth a hundred years of prayer and
meditation.' Even today, I cannot fathom how fortunate I was to 'hold hands'
with God ."

2i.italJane

'3parkie"
'cukes qJrnnner
rJ)ecember I8, I929 - ...April IO, 20IO
Jeanne Kassof, California
" Something melted in my breast and
a light became in it and spread
right through me. This was something
quite different from anything I had up
to this time experienced-it was not a
"warmth" an "attraction" or a "desire" for
a girl-it was another person actually
within me, a person called Sparkie."
That was Francis Brabazon's immediate impression on meeting Rita Jane
Lukes for the first time in 1952 in New
York. In Ross Keating's book "Francis
Brabazon: Poet of the Silent Word"
there is a whole chapter dedicated to
her . He said, "Francis has certainly
expressed very deeply his feelings for
Sparkie in his early poetry, and this will
certainly live on. In her he saw the mirror of the beauty of his own true Self,
the beauty of God."
When Francis arrived, Sparkie was
given the task of showing him around
New York. She told me he was skipping
down the sidewalk he was so happy to
be with her, completely oblivious to the
odd looks he was getting from those
around them. Each time Francis would
write her a poem, he would ask for her
opinion... she told me, " I didn't know
about poems or Daphne or Beatrice. I
just wanted a regular boyfriend, just a
down to earth boyfriend." He was 43
and she 21 when they met. She said her
father would not go for the age difference . [Filis Frederick in "The Awak. "].
ener magazme
Sparkie had been a school mate of
Charmian Duce's when they both attended Bennington College in Vermont, and soon afterwards moved in
with her and her mother, Murshida Ivy
Duce in New York City, acting as her
secretary and attending Sufi classes in
her home. Baba came to New York that
year so she was lucky enough to have

77

been in the right place at the right time.
On May 7, Ivy, Charmian, Sparkie,
Francis and Enid Corfe made the day
and a half drive together to Myrtle
Beach to meet Baba. They had many
full days being with Him at what is now
known as the Meher Spiritual Center.
Sparkie had an interview with Baba on
May 12 th at 10 a.m.
One day Charmian and Sparkie
bought a rabbit, some little black frogs,
and a fish that they thought the women
mandali would like. Baba took them
over to the Guest House so the women
could see them. As He was looking at
the frogs in the jar, they started to perform for Him gathering into circles and
tumbling around.
On May 17, "Open Day" was held in
the Barn where over 700 people came
to visit. After it was over, Baba, Sparkie, Charmy and her mother went to
pay a last visit to the women mandali.
He told them, "A thousand years hence,
people will be singing about this day in
the Barn."
The next time Sparkie saw Baba was
in 1956 when she once again had the
very good fortune to be in Baba's group
for this American tour. Here are more
fun stories taken from "The Awakener
Magazine", "Spread My Love", "How a
Master Works", and" Lord Meher."
The following stories come from these
sources:
In the Center again, narrated by Filis: "One evening ended with fireworks
fitfully falling into the dark forest and
lake, set off by Lud Dimpfl, Will Belote, Sparkie Lukes and Charmian,
from a boat out in the lake, while we
crowded the shore. At first, Baba stood
with us, then I saw Him slip across the
lagoon bridge and up the hill. I followed Him over the narrow path, and
through the screen of bushes, I saw
Him standing in the headlights of the
car talking briefly for a few moments
with Kitty and Elizabeth. Then He
was gone. The last fireworks died into
the lake with the faraway shouts of the
children. How like children we must all
seem to Him, the Divine Father!" Sparkie continued on the tour to Washington DC, Los Angeles, Meher Mount in
Ojai and San Francisco.
"In Meher Mount she was present
for the famous grapes story and the
rumbling of Baba's tummy after Dana
suggested that He eat some. They went

78

outside, and the sky began to clear. From
the 2,500 foot elevation of the property,
one could see for many miles, the beautiful rolling hills below, and out to the
Pacific. Shortly afterwards, Baba called
Ivy, Sparkie and a few others back inside. He was pacing up and down. Baba
looked at them solemnly, snapped His
fingers and said, "I have made my decision!" They stood dumbfounded, wondering what the momentous decision
was. He stated, "When I come back in
seven hundred years, there will be no
more grapes on earth, and maybe that
will help the liquor problem too!"
"Dana had been taking notes during
the tour for his "chronicle," and Baba
called him and told him it ought to go
in the chronicle that there will be no
grapes after seven hundred years. "On
second thought," he said, "let them
guess why there aren't grapes!" When
the laughter had subsided, Dana said,
"What will they say Baba, that I said
that there won't be any grapes because they gave the Avatar a tummy
ache?" Baba patted his tummy, and we
all heard the rumbles, and burst into
laughter with Him. He continued, tapping the top of His head, saying, "I bear
the whole universe on My head, but
this is a sort of additional crucifixion,
because this food does not agree with
Me." Adi said Baba didn't like milk either, and laughingly Ivy Duce said she
didn't like milk either. Sparkie quickly
hushed her up saying, "Don't start that
Murshida, or we wont have any steaks
to eat, either!"
"Baba then threw an apple to Don,
then retrieved it and rubbed the cheeks
of Sparkie, Charmian and Mike with
it, passing it on to the old bachelor,
Dr. Hayman, while Sparkie admonished, "Dr. Ben, don't give that to any
woman, or you may have to do this all
over again!" (referring to Eve and the
apple). Continuing all this nonsense,
Energy rushed into the room with a
large flat stone and handed it to the
Master with, "Baba, you said you didn't
believe there were six alligators in the
Myrtle Beach pond, so Mickey sent you
this big alligator egg." Baba rubbed his
tummy with it, again looking comically
anguished, as if to say, "Is it a remedy?
Will it help me?" He had us all doubled
with laughter.
"Baba and the mandali had their tea,
and then just as the sun was setting over

the glorious hills, Baba got into the station-wagon. He asked to be driven back
the longer coast rou te and often made
signs on the way of thoroughly enjoying the sparkling blue Pacific."
In Los Angeles, Baba had approved
Sparkie's marriage to Will Belote, so
she had had some deeply personal exchanges with Baba while in Meher
Mount. On February 23, 1957 she married Will. Energy Florsheim was her
matron of honor, and Charmian was
there. The marriage ended in divorce.
She then married a friend of his, Herb
Brunner, who was not a Baba lover, and
disappeared to Annapolis, Maryland.
They had one son,S grandchildren and
two great grandchildren.
She was on the committee for Muslim Christian Cooperation in Washington D.C. where she served as Executive
Secretary. She also served as secretary
for the Apollo States Delegation in the
United Nations, New York; and was the
grant coordinator for Maryland Historical. She loved to go Line dancing and
did Aerobics faithfully, even at age 75.
Just a year or so before Charmian Duce
Knowles died, she asked me if I could
find her dear friend whom she hadn't
seen in 50 years. Unfortunately, I only
located her a week after Charmy died.
Still, I had a few years to talk to Sparkie
on the phone. Charrny's husband, Duncan Knowles, sent Sparkie the photo
of Baba and her taken at the Holiday
Lodge, which she put by her bedside,
also a copy of Charmian's book, Spread
My Love. In turn, Sparkie sent us a box
of old relics, including a Baba brooch
of His hair and nails that Mehera had
made as gifts for the American girls.
She had kept everything in a box in her
room for all those years safe guarding
it all.
Sparkie had been born in Germany
and passed away in Tuckerman, Arkansas, from pneumonia. She was 80 years
old. I know that Charmy was waiting
on the other side to help her across.

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Mehera standing at the tree outside
her bedroom window, upon which
appeared theface ofher Beloved - sent,
no doubt, by her Lord to assuage her
feelings ofgrief Photograph taken by
Cindy Ceteras c.1971. -From the
Archives ofSufism Reoriented, Inc.